Bullying: The Legal Issues and Predicted

Bullying: The Legal Issues and Predicted

Future of this Issue

Andrew Arndt

Ball State University

Abstract

In this paper I will explore the issues of bullying and cyberbullying that plagues schools on a daily basis, its legal history, current pervasiveness, and the possible damaging effects this problem may have in the future. As a current educator with an ambition of wanting to become a school administrator, it is important to have a concrete understanding of the legal issues surrounding this topic. It is also imperative to understand the many different approaches of handling bullying situations as well as recognizing how this problem may develop in the future. I will explain why the topic is important and provide the judicial, legislative, and public policies that have been put in place to combat this developing problem.

The importance of researching and discussing topics such as bullying is monumental, since it has such a widespread scope and may lead to damaging effects on people's outlook on life. There are no environmental boundaries when it comes to bullying. It is not just something that affects poverty stricken areas or inner city schools. The issue of bullying occurs everywhere, including schools, prison facilities, in politics, the workplace, and many other environments. We know it is not secluded to certain areas mainly because almost everyone in the world has observed or experienced bullying at some point or another whether it was as a victim of bullying or as an active participant of bullying someone else. Sadly, it is also very likely that people have experienced both sides of bullying, being the victim as well as the accuser. Therefore, it is important that schools, employers, and other leaders take an active role of combating this unenviable problem. Addressing these issues at an early age can prove to be very beneficial, yet extremely difficult. As an educator, I attempt to advocate a bully-free zone in my classroom. However, as a student goes about their daily activities, transitioning from classroom to classroom, there are several opportunities for a student to be bullied by another student or group of students. This kind of harassment and teasing can cause damaging and long lasting effects on a student. Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, went as far as stating that bullying may violate a person's civil rights. He also expressed that "students simply cannot learn if they feel threatened..." It is evident that bullying, cyberbullying, and the issues surrounding this problem in schools are in a great need of being controlled.

The Definition of Bullying: What it involves and the types of it

Most researchers would agree that bullying involves three main parts: (1) imbalance of power: people who bully will use their power to control or harm an individual that would have a hard time defending themselves; (2) intent to cause harm: a person who bullies has a goal to cause harm to the victim; (3) repetition: incidents of bullying happen to the same person repeatedly by the same person or group.

The types of bullying that occurs are as follows: (1) verbal: involving name-calling, teasing of victim; (2) social: spreading rumors, leaving people out of groups on purpose, and the breaking up of friendships; (3) physical: hitting, punching, shoving, or physically touching victim; (4) cyber bullying: a relatively new method of bullying involving the Internet, mobile phones, or other digital technologies to harm victims

Bullying has gone on since the beginning of human interaction. People have used the aforementioned aspects of bullying to harass, tease, abuse, or intimidate other people. Unfortunately, much of the incidences of bullying go unnoticed and unreported. On a national scale, in 2001 14% of students reported being the victims of bullying. Of those 14%, 8% were bullied directly. In a more narrow aspect, in a report by Sandra Harris and Garth Petrie, researchers at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas, 92% of students in two separate middle schools reported observing bullying at least "sometimes." Half of the students did not tell anyone when they were bullied. Less than 3% told a teacher, and sadly students perceived that 60% of teachers and 70% of administrators were "not interested" in reducing bullying in their schools.

The Judicial Aspect of Bullying and Cyber bullying in Schools

"Bullying and cyberbullying cases by their nature involve a spectrum of common law, statutory, and constitutional issues ranging from the common law tots of intentional interference and negligence to issues of statutory 'true threats,' as well as constitutional free speech issues."

An issue at hand is that there is no law, per se, involving bullying. Instead, there is jurisprudence in school law in recent years that involves students in criminal and civil court actions. The ways in which this civil law was addressed are twofold. The first way the laws were being challenged was through the tort of intentional interference, the second negligence. The way of intentional interference would be if a student was physically harmed, negligence would be involving the school administrators, teachers, or the accused parents, all of whom failed to exercise a standard of care in preventing the harm to the plaintiff.

Beyond these common-law torts of intentional interference and negligence, some states, including Indiana, have enacted anti-bullying statutes in order to prevent bullying. In 2005, Indiana enacted the following code: Title 20, Article 33, Chapter 8, Section 13.5 which called for discipline rules prohibiting bullying in schools.

The law stated that a school corporation must: 1. prohibit bullying; and 2. include provisions concerning education, parental involvement, reporting, investigation, and intervention.

It also went on to say when these rules must be enforced. The laws were to be in effect during school hours, or any time the school is being used by a school group, off school grounds at a school activity, function, or event, traveling to or from school or school activity, function, or event. The law culminated by saying that the new laws may not be construed to give rise to a cause of action against a person or school corporation based on allegation of noncompliance with the section. Noncompliance may not be