SC Student Arrested For Slut-Shaming Teacher

leigh anne arthur text message social media union
Leigh Anne Arthur (Screenshot via YouTube)

Yesterday, we told you about Leigh Anne Arthur, a teacher from Union, South Carolina who was bullied into resigning when one of her students at Union County High School found a partially nude picture on her phone and plastered it on social media. Well, it looks like Arthur may be about to get a measure of justice. Late Friday, the student was arrested on charges that could potentially send him to adult prison.

Soon after the incident was reported, the Union Public Safety Department asked the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division to assist in the investigation. It turns out that the student found the picture in a passcode-protected file on Arthur’s phone, then took pictures of that photo on his own cell phone. Union police chief Sam White told WSPA-TV in Spartanburg that on that basis, the unidentified 16-year-old was arrested and charged with computer crime and aggravated voyeurism. The former charge came because the kid accessed the information on Arthur’s phone without permission.

Watch WSPA’s report on the arrest here.

White says that after the student swiped the pictures from Arthur’s phone, he stored the copies in a secret app on his own phone that was disguised as a calculator. SLED confiscated the phone after Arthur filed a telephone harassment complaint against its owner.

You would have thought that this kid would have already been suspended and staring down the barrel of expulsion. However, as late as Tuesday, interim superintendent David Eubanks was deferring to law enforcement, even though this clearly met the real-world definition of invasion of privacy. It was only after the arrest was announced that Eubanks announced the student could potentially be expelled.

It’s not as if Eubanks had a choice. Aggravated voyeurism is a felony in South Carolina. Standard operating procedure in nearly every school system calls for a student to be suspended–at the very least–when charged with a crime as serious as this. But Eubanks shouldn’t have waited that long. In any school district that didn’t have its head up its rear end, this student would have long since been suspended.

There’s a very good chance that more charges could be on the way. Arthur says that the student printed several of the pictures and sent them to her house. One of them had a threatening message on the back of it, intended for Arthur and her kids. Arthur has talked to an attorney, and plans to press charges.

The fact that this punk threatened Arthur and her family should be enough by itself to send this case to adult court. All together? As concerned as I am about the school-to-prison pipeline, there would be something fundamentally wrong if this case isn’t sent to adult court. I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable with a person who slut-shames anyone–regardless of age–just being sent to a youth facility until he is 21. I would hope, though, that if he is sent to the adult system, he gets some serious counseling.

Incredibly, Eubanks is still blaming Arthur for her ordeal. He says that he had no choice but to force Arthur’s resignation because she wasn’t properly supervising her students–even though she was in the hallway at the time, where she was required to be during class change. He even suggested that Arthur might have contributed to the delinquency of a minor. Never mind that this bottom-feeder warned Arthur that her “day of reckoning” was coming. In what world is that not a threat? So instead of offering support to a teacher who was threatened, Eubanks all but bullied her into resigning. What’s wrong with this picture?

As of Saturday night, a petition calling for Arthur’s reinstatement has garnered over 13,000 signatures. But Arthur isn’t sure she wants her job back. If this district isn’t willing to back up teachers who are being threatened and slut-shamed, I’m not sure I’d want to work there either. At least we know that the kid who did this is about to get a serious reality check.

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.