Chelsea Chaney Bikini Pic Could Cost School $2 Million
After posting what seemed to be an innocent vacation photo to her Facebook account, one high school senior from Georgia was mortified to learn what it was being used for. Now she's suing her school district for improper use of her photo.
Chelsea Chaney is suing Fayette County School District for $2 million, for using her photo as part of a campaign to raise awareness of controlling one's image online. The picture of Chaney was meant to dissuade students from posting questionable pictures online.
"I was embarrassed. I was horrified. It never crossed my mind that this would ever, ever happen to me," said Chaney, who now attends the University of Georgia. "I wish this had never happened. I cried a lot. It made my first semester a lot harder."
What's even more peculiar is that the picture is not particularly controversial. In the photo, Chaney, 18, can be seen in a bikini standing next to a cardboard cut out of rapper Snoop Lion. Her attire seems appropriate for the beach and she is not posing in a suggestive manner.
Still, her school district felt that it was warranted in using her picture in a negative context via its "Once It's There, It's There to Stay" program, suggesting that she was promiscuous and illegally abusing alcohol. In truth, Chaney was on a family vacation at the time and was not involved in any questionable behavior.
"Their idea that putting something on Facebook gives them a license to steal it and do with it what they did is wrong ethically, it's wrong morally and it's absolutely wrong legally," her attorney Pete Wellborn said.
The school has yet to release a statement regarding the large lawsuit now being levied against them by Chaney. Chaney's family claims that they are suing because they want their complaint to be taken seriously, while the school district has stated that they do not believe they have any legal liability.
The school originally did apologize for its usage of Chaney's image, but it appears that their apology was not good enough. The school district claimed that they had chosen the picture at random, but Chaney's camp has said that the apology was insincere and because of that insincerity, they are now trying to raise awareness of the case.
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