Big bullies

May 25, 2005

I noticed that TV weatherman Al Roker was on Capitol Hill yesterday to help support the Anti-Bullying Act (H. R. 284), a bill that’s starting to generate some support from teachers and law enforcement groups. As education policies go, this one hardly seems like a big deal and appears to be something of a no-brainer.

Under the legislation, school districts would be required to report the number of bullying incidents to the Department of Education and to establish procedures for students and parents to report bullying.

Pretty straightforward stuff. TV celebrity comes by to take a few pictures, lawmakers denounce bullies, bill moves through committee, everybody’s happy.

Everyone, that is, except some high-profile conservative activists.

It’s not one of the issues that dominate political discussions in right-wing circles, but it’s interesting to note that the far-right has quietly railed against anti-bullying legislation for years. Why on earth would “pro-family” activists oppose efforts to curtail and respond to bullying? If you said, “Because the right wants to pick on gays,” you’re right!

For example, here’s what Southern Baptists in Texas are considering.

A minister from Spring is one of two people who have co-authored a proposed resolution to be presented to the Southern Baptist Convention in June that would call on churches to investigate whether local public schools in their cities are promoting homosexuality.

Rev. Voddie Baucham, Jr. said if schools are found to be promoting homosexuality through any number of specified means, churches are advised to call on their members to pull their children out of the schools and either home school them or place them in Christian schools.

The means specified in the resolution include “officially sanctioned homosexual clubs” (such as Gay-Straight Alliances), such deceptive labels as safe sex, diversity training, multicultural education, anti-bullying and safe schools.” (emphasis added)

If you’re a conservative, this follows a certain twisted logic. Gay kids may come out in high school and evangelical kids want to be able to pressure and intimidate them. If schools are monitoring bullying behavior, it could interfere with all harassment.

Indeed, James Dobson’s Focus on the Family (who else?) articulated the right-wing approach to anti-bullying programs perfectly.

We have seen that anti-bullying legislation usually opens the door to the gay activist agenda in public schools, including the aggressive formation of GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) Clubs by activists on school campuses. […]

“Focus on the Family supports a safe learning environment for all students. Respect is the right of every student. We also believe that school representatives should assure the safety and protection of every student. Unfortunately, that is not what anti-bullying and safe-schools legislation is about.

We do not support special “safe school” and anti-bullying legislation because of the way it opens the door to advance an aggressive, pro-homosexual agenda in public school classrooms.

If schools teach “tolerance,” students may learn to respect kids who are gay. If schools crack down of bullies, gay kids may not be teased and tormented.

And since Jesus was constantly bullying and harassing people he disagreed with, the right’s position has deeply rooted religious underpinnings, right?

School board memeber checking in here.

No thanks to this legislation. How do you define bullying? Do principals/teachers make that call? What about “zero tolerance” bullying policies? Wait until that comes down the pike. Some kid cuts in lunch line to stand next to a friend of his, but is 4 inches taller than the kid he cut in front of. Short kid cries foul. Lunch monitor agrees. Tall kid suspended.

Dumb.

Yeah, the Dobson crowd is wrong. But this is bad legislation. We don’t need laws. We need good parents.

  • Chuck – I understand your comment, but (not having read the entire article about the legislation myself), please re-read the excerpt Carpetbagger quoted. It at least seems to address one of your concerns, re: how to report bullying. I don’t believe in zero tolerance, understand the need of school officials to have discretion on such issues, and agree that parenting is a crucial factor here.

    However, I support this particular piece of legislation for the following reasons:
    1. kids on the receiving end of bullying often have little recourse and having at least some outlet would be great
    2. there is definitely a school of thought that bullying is not a problem, so it would be nice to get an idea of the actual incidence
    3. such a tally would also allow a meaningful set of guidelines where scenarios such as you present do not occur.

    I understand that school systems are stretched very thin and adding another set of responsibilities would be difficult. Schools obvioulsy need more resources. However, the anger and fear that bullying provokes in the victims and the situations that bulliers create are serious issues that need to be addressed in some way. Federal legislation on how to deal with bullying may not be the answer, but I know the school district in which I was educated needed some pressure to do anything about bullying.

  • We need good parents — and good teachers — and good administrators — and good school board members. Alas, that’s a mighty rare combination.

    From the right’s perspective, I suppose it’s just one more case of gays demanding “special rights” — in this case, a right for gay children not to have the shit beat out of them. I do agree that passing a law and dumping the problem back into the schools to deal with is no magical solution. But on the other hand, just as laws and school rules against expressions of racism haven’t eliminated racism in the schools, such laws *have* sent the message that unbridled racism is unacceptable, and have made the problem less severe. You can’t legislate tolerance, but you can require standards of public behavior that provide a reasonable facsimile.
    . . . jim strain in san diego.

  • Some problems just can’t be legislated away, and I think bullying is one of those. It does need to be dealt with, however, and the far right shows what myopic fools they are by saying bullying is permissable because gays are sure to suffer some of the abuse.

    If you look at all the cases of school shootings (Columbine, et al.), it’s nearly always the bullied, marginalized, “picked-on” students that exact their revenge in bloody ways. Dobson and company need to get their heads out of the sand (among other places).

    W has a great line for why the far right folks are currently terrorizing our society: “They hate our freedom.”

  • RE: . . . jim strain in san diego’s comment of

    “You can’t legislate tolerance, but you can require standards of public behavior that provide a reasonable facsimile.”

    BRAVO!

  • Some kid cuts in lunch line to stand next to a friend of his, but is 4 inches taller than the kid he cut in front of. Short kid cries foul. Lunch monitor agrees. Tall kid suspended.

    Taller kids should get to cut in the line, it is their right as part of the En-Heightened Class

  • I know the school district in which I was educated needed some pressure to do anything about bullying.

    Agreed.

    Laws, not needed.

  • The reason that bullying is getting some attention is because the FBI has looked into the matter and thinks that school security is compromised by letting kids be bullied. In other words, the lack of this legislation promotes events like Columbine.

    I wonder if Chuck would feel the same about keeping the law out of bullying if he were currently a kid being bullied.

    In the workplace, there are laws against sexual harrassment and other forms of intimidation. Just walking down the street, there are laws that protect me from being beaten up. Yet kids, who can’t pick their ‘workplace’ and can’t ‘avoid the street’ — kids who we tell ourselves we protect — kids have no recourse when they are threatened. They are forced into an environment every day where they may be in fear of their lives, where they may be physically abused — hell, in 2003 over 342,000 kids were hit by public school officials. I’d like to see my boss try that.

    I remember spending the entire 5th grade sneaking to my bus, because a group of girls told me each day that they were planning to beat me up. They never did, but they scared the hell out of me and made my life horrible. But there’s no witness protection plan for kids, is there? Besides, there wasn’t any law against them intimidating me that way or even beating me up.

    Well, maybe Florida’s recent law that allows a person to murder another person in a public place when they feel threatened will provide a way for Florida students, at least, to defend themselves against those who would do them harm. Since no one else seems interested in helping them.

    At least, that’s one way to go…..

  • Don’t even try to guess what’s up with my kids. Keep that crap to yourself. What I do know is that I don’t want the school policing this. Schools are for educating, not law enforcement. When they don’t get that, you end up with the mockery that my old high school became after the Powder Puff incident.

    Sorry that you were bullied as a little girl. Maybe if you’d told your parents about it, something would have been done. Oh. Pardon me for presuming your actions.

    As to the analogy with workplace sexual harrassment, non sequitur as adults are responsible for their own actions. They have the ability to engage police, lawyers, etc. Kids need good parents.

    They need teachers who control classrooms, sure. But we don’t need more laws. Teachers are not hired or trained to be peacekeepers.

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