LANCE FRY / Scroll Illustration

Bullying legislation aims to keep kids safe

Julia Jacobson JAC03001@BYUI.EDU Scroll Staff

The days of wet willies, stealing lunch money and giving someone a wedgie are seemingly long gone while life-threatening forms of bullying have taken precedence. Recently, one state decided they had had enough.

The Indiana State Legislature took notice of this trend in early January, after a northern Indiana student resorted to stabbing a student as a means to stop bullying.

Physical harm and harassment may not be prevented, acknowledged backers of the anti-bullying bill, which passed the Indiana house 67-30.  However, it may force schools to take bullying seriously while giving them tools to help recognize and stop it.

From school to city and the county to the state level, bullying is becoming a reoccurring theme in the school shooting nightmares that became prevalent in sleepy, small towns from Paducah, Ky., to Bethel, Alaska, in the mid to late 1990s.

“It’s great that they’re making a line that if kids cross it, they’ll suffer the consequences.  It makes me wonder how many kids will go up to that line without crossing it,” said Joy Christiansen, secondary education major and senior from San Diego, Calif. 

However, the trend toward bullying continues.

The most recent survey by the National Institutes of Health showed that 30 percent of the nation’s schoolchildren have been involved in bullying in some way; either the culprit or victim.

Many have seen or experienced bullying through name-calling, put downs or being made fun of. Feeling like less of a person because of what another says or does is one definition of bullying. 

What would cause a high school student to gun down a peer at school? Some are pointing the finger towards bullying.

Results from bullying include school shootings, teen suicide and eating disorders.  Though these social stigmas are common, kids are more vulnerable today than they were in years past, said Dr. Suellen Reed, superintendent of Public Instruction of the Indiana Department of Education.

“Though bullies have always been a problem confronting our schools, the psychological and physical consequences of bullying behavior have never been greater,” Reed said. 

School shootings, such as the Columbine incident in 1999, join a list claiming that depression-enduced bullying is a factor in many tragedies.

“The two perpetrators at Columbine were the victims of bullies at that school and that was why they decided to retaliate,” said Jennifer Dounay, a policy analyst at the Education Commission of the States, a Denver-based group made up of state education officials.

Students at BYU-Idaho learn something about bullying prior to hitting the classroom, said elementary education major, Sarah Self, a senior from Kent, Wash.

“We learn about creating a community where everybody’s ideas are accepted. We also talk about conflict resolution, teaching students how to resolve their own problems.”

As a trendsetter in the area of anti-bully legislation, Indiana hopes other states will follow suit.

Arizona Congressman, Trent Franks (R), supported similar legislation in his home state by expressing his feelings about bullying.

“The school ground bully has been around for too long. His entire success at bullying is predicated upon arrogant disregard to simple decency, and a willingness to brutalize an innocent victim simply because the bully is bigger ... It is insidious and calls for society and government to intervene decisively,” Franks said.