Bullying And Laws

Watching the film Bully made me upset for several reasons. One of the reasons is that it seemed like there was a pattern in every case we saw. The schools were not responding to the bullying that was going on. As a result many of the victims committed suicide and there was a girl who brought a gun to school, endangering many students. 

I begin searching for laws that pertained to bullying. In this article, it states, "Although no federal law directly addresses bullying, in some cases, bullying overlaps with discriminatory harassment when it is based on race, national origin, color, sex, age, disability, or religion."This article defines bullying  and also highlights the school's responsibilities to addressing each type of bully cases.  

I begin to think, so what happens to the students that tormented another student to the point of taking their own life? Ultimately the decision to take your own life is solely that of the person who is attempting suicide but what factors influenced that decision should be considered in every case. What about those who repeatedly tells another student to kill themselves? Should they be held accountable if proven that there partook in the bullying? What do you guys think and to what extent should punishment be? Maybe if there were harsher consequences people will begin to see just how much influence words and bullying can impact someone else, maybe not.

I think cyber bullying laws are having greater consequences because with texts, social media, and emails, there is hard evidence. I remember hearing about a woman who posed as a young  boy online and bullied her daughters ex-bestfriend to the point of her suicide. Here is the article to that story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/26/AR2008112600629.html