It is clear that school staff members and
officials have a hard time dealing with the issues of bullying, and its
generally one students word against another’s. I find it hard not to wonder
what happens when things get worse, what happens when parents decided to take
things a step further and take it to the courts? Or worse, what happens when a
parent loses a child to suicide and is forced to take it the courts?
In 2007 Illinois, Washington,
Oregon, Minnesota and New Jersey were among the few states to enact
anti-bullying laws. Thomas Diamantes discusses how these laws play a role in
the court system in “How the Courts Deal with Bullying in Schools”. Diamantes
tells the story about three different students whom have unfortunately had
their incidents taken to the court.
The first being a student from
Connecticut whom was bullied by a fellow classmate. His family sued the
district saying that “the school employees knew of widespread harassment and
bullying by classmates but were indifferent to it”. The court found the school
in failure to respond to harassment but was not found liable because the victim
could not show that he was treated differently because of his size or his ADHD
status.
The second case took place in
Minnesota, whom, at the time had not enacted the anti-bullying law. A child
had complained to his parents that fellow students were threatening to ‘get
him’ after school. The school resource officer got involved but said that it
was an off campus incident and there was no further action needed to be taken. The student
(victim) ended up taking his own life. The victims family sued the district, but
the courts ruled that they are responsible to protect students; they are not
liable for sudden, unanticipated misconduct. The courts also found no evidence
that a school anti-bullying policy would have changed the outcome of the case.
The final case was the one that I
found most disturbing; a student was attacked and seriously injured by another unprovoked student. The parents sued the district claiming that the
assaulting student had a history of bullying and the school failed to take
steps to protect other students. Yet the court found that while the assaulting
student had a record, the attack was not foreseeable and that the type of
supervision that the family urged was intensive and unrealistic (requiring a
teacher to follow the student around all day).
Diamantes explains how “these cases
show that courts back the schools if they make reasonable responses to reports
of bullying” and how the questions of if the act was foreseeable and if it
could have been prevented.
Morgan Smith discusses the
legislatures views on bullying in “Legislature Spotlights Bullying in Schools”.
Smith explains that there are currently more than fifteen anti-bullying bills
filed in the legislature, but the problem seems to circulate around the
question about how to successful define bullying. “It’s like passing a law that
says you shall be nice, and then trying to define nice” says Todd Smith the
State Representative and Republican of Bedford.
Many Representatives have come up
with their own interpretation including Mark Strama, Democrat of Austin whom
expanded the definition of bullying to include a section on cyber bullying.
However the A.C.L.U of Texas opposes Strama’s bill because “the definition
includes ‘interferes with students’ educational opportunities”.
In my opinion I find it extremely
hard to believe how these important legislatures who determine our laws are
wasting so much time on the politics of how things are worded in these bills
while the issues of bullying are growing worse by the day. It is quite hard to
turn on the morning news and not hear about a child or even an adult being
bullied. It seems as if when you hear about a young child taking
their life due to bullying the shock factor is now gone; at least it is for me.
Bullying may start in the classrooms, but that’s definitely not the only place
that needs to intervene. Our government needs to step up now, since they have failed to do so in years past.
Works Cited
Diamantes, Thomas. "How the
Courts Deal with Bullying in Schools." Journal of Instructional
Psychology 37.4 Dec. : 306-07. Esearch. Web. 14 Apr. 2012.
Smith, Morgan. "Legislature
Spotlights Bullying in Schools." The New York Times 4 Mar. 2011,
east coast ed.: A21. Esearch. Web. 14 Apr. 2012.
-Rachel Forrester
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