news-record.com

Some good advice: Don't put in electronic form anything you wouldn't want to be viewed by millions of people.

Doing so can be hazardous, even fatal, to your career. Take, for example, the five Charlotte-Mecklenburg schoolteachers, whose postings on Facebook showed what a school official correctly called "poor judgment and poor taste."

As a result, the one who said she's "teaching chitlins in the ghetto of Charlotte" has been fired. The others, whose offenses included posting pictures of themselves in sexually suggestive poses, were suspended.

Such impaired judgment -- no, stupidity -- deserves severe sanctions. In a classic understatement, the school official said, "When you're in a professional position, especially where you're interacting with children and parents, you need to be above reproach."

Anyone choosing the Facebook or MySpace route should realize that such sites aren't private unless they're so programmed. And increasingly, employers, potential employers and college recruiters routinely monitor them. Unflattering personal Web sites can leave a damning electronic paper trail that can have unwanted repercussions for years to come.

It's not a free-speech issue. No matter the forum, people must accept the consequences for what they say and do. So, there's no excuse for the teachers in question to have widely disseminated clearly inappropriate material.

Whether they were guilty of a temporary lapse, carelessness or a calculated attempt to embarrass Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools, they must now pay the price. Unfortunately, careers will be derailed and families needlessly embarrassed.

But the resulting diminished credibility makes it impossible to turn back the clock. Simply put, such inexplicably bad judgment and immature behavior cannot be condoned.

It is a painful lesson the rest of us would do well to remember.