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Last week the state Assembly Education
Committee unanimously approved two Bills, requiring
all New Jersey school districts to create and adopt
policies designed to prevent bullying and harassment
in our schools. I was among those who appeared and testified
in support of these Bills, in my capacity as Vice-Chair
of the New Jersey Human Relations Council. This is a
positive appraisal of our legislators in action.
This
hearing did not make the front pages, as it competed
with the Camden financial bailout, the proposed increase
in the cigarette tax and other pressing financial issues.
But this legislation is every bit as important as anything
which will be considered in Trenton this year. It is
an attempt to remedy a serious and significant problem,
affecting thousands of school children ever single day.
Kids just like yours and mine.
First,
a mouthful of a definition that only a lawyer could
love, to help define the problem. Bullying is a gesture,
written, verbal or physical, on school property, at
a school function, or on a school bus, that would have
the effect of harming a student’s person or property,
or placing a student in fear of such harm. It also includes
behavior which is insulting or demeaning. Specifically,
bullying behavior also includes conduct motivated by
race, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual
orientation, or a mental, physical or sensory handicap,
or by any other distinguishing characteristics.
Bullying
is a serious, growing national problem. As many as 20
per cent of all children report being bullied in school.
Up to a reported 160,000 students across the country
miss school each day out of fear of being picked on.
That is a truly alarming statistic. And, how many others
attend school, but cannot focus on learning or paying
attention in their classes because they are worried
about what might happen to them on the playground, during
lunch, in the hallways, or going home from school that
day?
Most
bullying behavior takes place where there is little
adult supervision.
Even
where there is, bullying is often tolerated or ignored
by teachers or fellow students. Teachers intervene only
a paltry 4% of the time. Attitudes range from a belief
that the victim either did something to “deserve”
the treatment, or that being picked on makes a child
“tougher.” Others believe that it is merely
harmless “fun,” or nothing more than a rite
of passage and something children must learn to deal
with as a lesson in life.
Anyone
who believes such stuff and nonsense should have gotten
a rude awakening after the 1999 school shootings at
Columbine High School, or any of the number of other
widely reported acts of school violence. We now know
that those responsible for that violence were retaliating
for having been victims of severe, long-term bullying.
I am not suggesting that bullying provides an excuse
for such obscene acts of violence, but rather that such
a reaction can be the consequence of years of unresolved
victimization. The problem is more serious than you
may think. A study in the Journal of the American Medical
Association shows a strong correlation between victimized
children and long-term problems of depression and anxiety.
25% of school students who are bullies in elementary
school will have a criminal record by their mid-twenties.
Sexual harassment, can be a precursor of domestic violence
and teen date abuse, which are themselves rampant societal
problems.
At
last week’s hearing, several brave children and
parents came forward and told horrible stories of how
they or their children had been picked on, assaulted
and called names. Children from nice suburban schools,
like yours and mine. It was enough to melt the icicles
of even the most hard-hearted of politicians. Support
for these bills was unanimous.
Last
year, the New Jersey Human Relations Council conducted
a series of regional roundtables, across the state,
to learn about the public’s human relations concerns.
At every meeting, bullying and harassment in schools
was raised as a serious issue.
Some
might ask why additional laws are needed to deal with
what should already be addressable though existing laws
and policies. The answer is that this is a serious enough
problem that it deserves specific legislation. The law
does not seek to force every school district to establish
the same policies. Rather, it is “home rule”
friendly, setting certain minimal components of an anti-bullying
and harassment policy, and then allowing interested
parties to work together to create appropriate local
policies.
Many
school officials, while meaning well, may not recognize
that bullying creates a legal responsibility to respond.
The legislation makes it more likely that they will
be made aware of the nature and categories of bias-based
bullying, so that they can appropriately respond to
such situations. These policies will also serve to protect
school districts from liability by giving a consistent
direction to school staff and students as to what behaviors
will not tolerated and as to what the consequences will
be of such misconduct.
Is
this a complete solution? By no means. It is however,
an important step in dealing with bullying and making
our schools safer places for learning.
July
16, 2002
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