Ipswich High School Boys Send Emails Rating Girls Without Prom Dates; School Officials Investigate

Two inappropriate emails sparked outrage and fears of cyberbullying in Ipswich, Mass. this week. The emails were sent to many of Ipswich High School's male juniors and listed 22 female students who didn't have prom dates -- along with comments about their interests, sizes and dating experience.

The email initially appeared to be from junior class officers, but Ipswich school officials say they weren't the ones responsible. Rather, the sender obtained students' email addresses through a Facebook account set up by the officers related to next month's prom, reports The Salem News.

The first email named the girls and detailed their hobbies and sizes; the second assessed the girls' dating experience using a system of asterisks: One for girls who had "never been kissed,'' two for girls who had "had a couple of good relationships'' and three for girls who wore "yoga pants, belly rings, low-cut shirts every day.''

While students' reactions to the emails were mixed, the school took them seriously -- principal Barry Cahill spoke to the student body, warning them not to copy, duplicate or post the emails, and sent a message to parents condemning the emails.

"It's unfair," Cahill told WHDH 7News. "It puts students who don't belong in that situation... in a light that they didn't ask to be put in."

WATCH:

Shawn Smith, an Ipswich police officer assigned to the school, told The Boston Globe that because the email didn't violate state law, it's unlikely criminal charges will be filed. But Cahill said that the school will consider suspending or expelling the sender if police determine it was a student. Ipswich police plan to subpoena the email provider to try to identify who wrote the emails.

Cahill also said he plans to review the school district's anti-bullying policy to determine whether the email constitutes bullying. The Ipswich bullying policy defines bullying as the "act of one or more individuals intimidating one or more persons through verbal, physical, mental, or written interactions, including through electronic means via the Internet or cell phone networks.'' It was adopted in accordance with Massachusetts' 2010 anti-bullying act.

Comments

[Michael Morrison]

02:00 PM on 06/06/2011

Get the thought police! Get the thought police!

[MissIndependentLady]

09:20 PM on 04/21/2011

Wow, high school boys judging girls on their appearances? Shocking! Don't get me wrong though. Girls DEFINITELY do this too. I don't really see this as cyberbullying though. I've read much worse things from teenagers. I don't see this as a huge issue.

[impatient]

01:56 PM on 04/21/2011

I went to an all girl high school, and didn't have a boy friend. So I didn't go to prom. But about half the girls in my school didn't go to the prom. It just wasn't that big a deal somehow.

readding this, I am very glad I never had to deal with this.

[deweydecimal]

02:21 PM on 04/21/2011

All I remember from prom was tying my bowtie and bringing along a bottle of grand marnier hoping I wouldn't get caught lols.

[adamben]

11:18 AM on 04/21/2011

lol!

[hagagaga]

02:34 PM on 04/18/2011

And this is unusual?

[Brittany Pendleton]

11:07 AM on 04/18/2011

Before e-mail, this would have been in a notebook people passed around. It's not bullying itself that has changed, just the methods.

[PeaceLove69]

04:58 PM on 04/18/2011

That's precisely where it was. My friends and I made a list ranking girls in our eighth grade class, and the girls in their vengeful rage made a list ranking us. Those lists were on pieces of paper that were discarded after they were read aloud to the class. No one cared the next day. That's just how it was back then. People moved on with their lives when I was young.

[dreday1]

02:34 PM on 04/19/2011

that was my first thought. meh, just kids being kids. it happens.

[MG Metiva]

09:00 AM on 04/18/2011

Those boys make Ridley from Metroid Prime look good!

[PeaceLove69]

09:42 PM on 04/17/2011

This is not a big deal at all. Just kids being kids. The whole anti-bullying campaign is just a trojan horse for the thought police to dictate what's appropriate to say to and about one's peers. We don't need big brother to protect our feelings from each other. These are highschool juniors so they can handle other people's opinions of them.

[StephenBP]

03:46 PM on 04/18/2011

Believe it or not, there is no such thing as thought police.

[PeaceLove69]

04:46 PM on 04/18/2011

LOL, I know. I was reerring to the fact that these utterly trivial events are oft exploited to recommend legislation to restrict expression to that which "doesn't hurt feelings." Trust me, the thought police are just underground and on the blogosphere.

[VA Jill]

08:33 PM on 04/17/2011

Just proves that at least some high school boys are pigs, which is not too far removed from middle school where they are just about all unreconstructed barbarians.

[daughterusmc]

08:58 AM on 04/18/2011

OMG!!! high school boys are pigs? how long has this been going on?

[VA Jill]

12:24 PM on 04/18/2011

As long as I've been alive, and I'm probably old enough to be your mom if not your granny ;->

[Matthew K Guske]

07:25 PM on 04/17/2011

This is pathetic. Guys and girls rate each other all the time, we are taught to categorize people at an early age. The email sender was offering his opinion on some dateless girls to his friends. If he had simply passed this message verbally it would not be a big deal, but since he emailed it it's a problem. What next, am I going to get in trouble for making a list ugliest actresses? Will that be bullying now?

[Andman0121]

10:06 AM on 04/17/2011

If you want this to stop then we as a nation need to collectively CRACK DOWN hard on this bs. I mean we need to find the ones responsible and boot them from the school. Same thing goes for bullying, cyberbullying, disrespect in the classroom, etc. These kids are being coddled too much and it is clearly showing.

[davidwees]

11:32 AM on 04/17/2011

We've tried that before. 0 tolerance for bullying doesn't work because it is difficult to define what is actually bullying. Our policies should reflect the fact that kids are learners, and that bullying is a learned behaviour and reaction to other factors in the kid's life.

Where we need to take a stand is on bullying in the adult world. Adults do way more bullying of each other than kids do, and get in a lot less trouble when they do it. How is that acceptable?

[Andman0121]

02:38 PM on 04/17/2011

But that lack of definition and the consequential litigation that goes with it is the problem! Give the teachers and the schools more power to do their job.

[Greg34]

01:00 PM on 04/20/2011

Sure buddy let's just kick every young kid out of school due to bullying. Please carefully define bullying so the policy is clear. Is it the teacher that had her entire class circle a kindergarten kid and oink at thim, is it the jock that makes fun of small kids, is it a note passed between friends making fun of someone. Come on kids are kids and you have to use some common sense. I am sure these boys will get completely embarassed and scolded by their community and will learn their lesson. This is not the first time this has ever happened most times it is just in conversation not an email.

[JScott]

09:37 AM on 04/17/2011

Hmm I see a reality show here or a new version of the 'Mean Girls' movie.-Tina Fey are you reading this post??????????

[JScott]

09:32 AM on 04/17/2011

principal Barry Cahill spoke to the student body, warning them not to copy, duplicate or post the emails

again a clueless adminstrator who probably has his 'secretary' print out his emails for him to read.

Got news for ya principal by the time your issued that, it's already been disseminated and like most stuff that goes on the internet it's probably forever.

[Michael Morrison]

01:58 PM on 06/06/2011

Evidently, he thinks his administrative powers trump the right to free speech, peaceably assemble, etc.

[chercheur]

04:22 PM on 04/16/2011

So it seems that no crime's been committed, but the Ipswich Police Department is going to subpoena internet records. Somebody ought to sue that police department for every penny it's got, and better yet, go after the individual coproaches for punitive damages and make their lives as miserable as possible for this gross abuse of subpoena power.

[Michael Morrison]

01:56 PM on 06/06/2011

chercheur:

That's a good point. It's pretty hard to see how a police department can subpoena anything without evidence of a crime.

'Sounds like a fishing expedition, to me.

[superdestroyer]

03:41 PM on 04/16/2011

Shouldn't the real question be why do high schools still have proms, homecomings, dances, and other social activities that add no value and are anachronistic from a time when most people live on farms on in small towns.

If students want to be dressed up and gossip about each other, the school should have nothng to do with it.

[novabird]

08:56 AM on 04/17/2011

Extra-curricular activities like proms provide social cohesion and a feeling of school spirit, which theoretically improves the quality of life for everyone.

[JScott]

09:35 AM on 04/17/2011

I never went to one. What I'd like to see is students whining at their parents 'why do you refuse to pay more taxes to improve education' because ultimately that's where funding from education comes from. They do this other things to keep students mind off the real issues, it's like 'the prom' is the most important thing in the world (jeez isn't there an MTV show about that-typically that's the corporate narrative subtly advocating 'low taxes good' higher taxes bad)

[Ghoulish]

09:53 AM on 04/17/2011

And it provides an "excuse" for students to skip a day of school in order to "get ready." I know that when I taught I had at least 10 people missing from every period the Friday before prom. They weren't learning but at least they were being properly socialized and were all united under school spirit! /sarcasm

[daughterusmc]

09:01 AM on 04/18/2011

because the youth still clamor for them and attend them in droves?

[superdestroyer]

07:47 AM on 04/19/2011

Still no reason for schools to waste the time on them.

Maybe in a time when most Americans lived on a farm, a prom would be the first formal event teenagers ever attended. Now that students are back-packing the Andres, traveling the world, and generally living in large urban areas, there is no reason for the forced socialization.

Why waste the overtime pay, waste the student's time, and spend time in court defending policies when so many students cannot function at the 12th grade level?

[Michael Morrison]

01:55 PM on 06/06/2011

The youth clamor for a lot of things. That doesn't mean we should indulge every whim of youth.