Quit Facebook or risk expulsion, N.Y. Orthodox school orders students

An Orthodox Jewish girls’ high school in Brooklyn has ordered its 11th-grade students to close their Facebook accounts and pay a fine.

Administrators at the Beis Rivkah High School, which is associated with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, reportedly called each 11th-grader with Facebook account out of class to issue her a written ultimatum to either delete the account and pay a $100 fine or be expelled, CrownHeights.info reported last week. About half the 11th-graders reportedly have Facebook accounts.

Some parents and students are upset by the crackdown, CrownHeights.info reported, saying that students had been urged to create the accounts last year in order to vote for Beis Rivkah in the Kohl’s Cares charity giveaway, which gave money to the schools with the most votes via Facebook.

An unnamed school administrator told CrownHeights.info that the school was eliminating Facebook from its students’ lives in an effort to restore a higher level of modesty among the students.