Increasing Bullying Cases - Term Paper Example

Bullying Bullying has become an issue of major concern. Today, bullying is widely acknowledged as a serious challenge. Thisexplains why there has been the emergence of bullying litigation as a distinct area of law. Besides schools, service agencies as well as workplaces have recognized bullying as a major problem. They have consequently instituted a wide range of measures aimed at averting this social problem. According to Stoker & Bonds (2010), 46 states in the United States have now enacted anti-bullying laws and policies. In most of these states, such laws and policies are incorporated into education codes as well as school laws. This paper provides an insightful analysis of bullying. More emphasis is conferred about the important of bullying as a judicial legislative and public policy issues. In addition, the paper analyzes the direct impact of bullying on education. Finally, the paper addresses the trends in litigation as well as the relevant bullying laws. Bullying The United States Department of Health and Human Services defines bullying as the unwanted aggressive behavior involving power imbalance (Fried & Fried, 2011). One salient feature about bullying is that it is repeated, or has the ability to be repeated. The power imbalance can be real or perceived. It may include physical strength, peer support, popularity, status, or access to hurtful information. There are many forms of bullying. Verbal bullying includes taunting, teasing or threatening harm. Relational bullying of the other hand may include spreading rumors, humiliating and malicious excluding. Thirdly, physical bullying includes hitting, pushing or spitting. Other forms of bullying include sexual harassment, hazing, and bullying based on perceived sexual orientation. According to Swearer, Espelage & Jimerson (2010), bullying is characterized by two major components, imbalance of power and repeated harmful acts. It involves verbal, non-verbal, or physical attacks or intimidation that is often directed towards a victim who is not able to properly defend himself or herself. There are widespread concerns about school violence and bullying in the recent years. There is overwhelming evidence that ascertains that bullying adversely affects student’s sense of security. Scholars recommend that the most effective way of averting bullying in schools require utmost commitment by school administrators. Existing statistics reveal that the most bullying incidences occur in schools. There are also numerous cases of bullying that occur on the way to or from the school, on the playground as well as on the bus. According to the statistics by the Centers for Dieses Control and Prevention, about 20 percent of high school students in the United States were bullied on school property in 2012 (Fried & Fried, 2011). In 2009, it was reported that 63 percent of all high school students in the county had been bullied. There are also many reported cases of bullying among postsecondary young adults in college campuses, workplace, and other social interactions. Kopasz & Smokowski (2005) Contend that incidents of bullying often occurs in places where there is no or minimum adult supervision. These include places such as schoolyards, bathrooms, cafeterias, stairwells, as well as hallways. As mentioned earlier, bullying has a number of adverse effects. Psychologists contend that the consequences of bullying are dire and endure for long. The extremes consequences of bullying include suicides. There are some reported cases of student suicides that were instigated by bullying or harassment. Studies have also established that victims of bullying especially during childhood often end up becoming bullies or perpetrators of violence. Other adverse effects of bullying include a variety of physical and psychological injuries such as broken bones, posttraumatic stress, sleeplessness, low self-esteem, depression, eating disorders, and behavioral disorders. Evidently, these effect lead to poor school performance. Besides the victims, bullying also affects the bullies. They also experience a host of physical and psychological disorders. Some of them end up presenting some other behaviors that place their friends, families, peers and other people at risk. Another salient feature in bullying is power imbalances. This explains why most bullies are often bigger and older than their victims are. On the other hand, most victims are often members of vulnerable groups such as minorities. In other instances however, both bullies and their victims are often exhibit common characteristics such as economic or social marginalization, low self-esteem, isolation, lack of support from home or poor school performance (Swearer, Espelage, & Jimerson, 2010). Scholars contend that one of the reasons why there are increased incidences of bullying is the reluctance to report. Most studies reveal that most of the students that are bullies do not report their bullying experiences to adults. Overwhelming research shows that many bullying victims and witnesses fail to tell their parents or even teacher. For this reason, teacher and parents often underestimate the incidences of bullying that occurs to their children (Fried & Fried, 2011). In the school setting, it becomes difficult for teacher and school administrators to have a clear picture regarding the extent of bullying in their schools. Other studies have shown that children fail to inform their teachers about bullying incidences because they do not believe that most teachers intervene when informed about bullying. Other reason as to why bullying victims do not tell teachers or parents include fear for retaliation, feeling ashamed about not being able to stand for themselves, not wanting to worry their teachers and parents, having no confidence on their teachers and parents, and fear of them not being believed. Many studies have been carried out to explain bullying behavior. Despite the country and cultural differences, there are various similarities in terms of age, location, gender and type of victimization. According to a number of studies, bullying often takes place at school premises. In addition, boy bullies tend to rely more on physical aggression more than girl bullies do. According to Kopasz & Smokowski (2005), girls tend to embrace indirect bullying whereas boys tend to take part in direct bullying. This is attributed to the fact that girls value social relationship more than boys do. For this reason, they set out to disrupt such social relationships with isolation, rumor spreading, gossip, exclusion, and silent treatment. Whereas girls tend to bully girls exclusively, boys bully both boys and girls. Studies have however shown that boys are more likely to bully and girls. Consistent studies have also shown that bullying often declines after the age of fifteen. Other studies suggest that racial bullying sometimes occurs in the United States. In a recent study, twenty-five percent of the respondents that were victimized by bullying revealed that they were bullied based on their race or religion. According to this study, black students reported being bullied less than their white and Hispanic peers(Swearer, Espelage, & Jimerson, 2010). In the recent years, a number of anti-bullying laws and policies have been adopted. Through these legislations, the Public Justice aims at enforcing averting bullying incidences and protecting children against bullying. The laws are also meant to hold school districts and official responsible for their failure to respond to bullying incidences effectively. At this point, it is necessary to have an overview of the available federal claims aimed at addressing bullying. It is the responsibility of schools to address bullying using the available anti-bullying policies. However, there are other bullying incidences that require the application of anti-discrimination statues as stated in the U.S constitution. For instance, bullying incidences that are based on race, color, sex, national origin and disability may call for the application of federal anti-discrimination statues such as Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prohibits any form of discriminating that is based on color, race or national origin. Other statutes applicable in such bullying incidences include Title IX, and Title II (Fried & Fried, 2011). Title II prohibits any form of discrimination based on disability while Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The above-mentioned civil rights statutes do not specifically prohibit forms of discrimination that are based on religion or circumstances. However, bullying incidences that are based on sexual orientation and religion are covered under Title IX and Title VI. For instance, the bullying of a gay student can be categorized as gender-based stereotyping, which is covered under Title IX. Moreover, if a Muslim or Jewish student is bullied based on his shared ancestry or religion, Title VI is applied. With reference to the U.S constitution, bullying that is based on color, race, sex, national origin, religion or disability may also result to a claim for the violation of such as student’s constitutional rights to equal treatment as provided for by the Fourteenth Amendment, under the Equal Protection Clause (Kopasz & Smokowski, 2005). A number of legal standards also apply to some of the above-motioned potential federal claims. The first is Title IX claim for gender-based bullying and sexual harassment. In this regard, Title IX prohibits any form of discrimination that is based on sex in schools that receive federal funding. This implies that Title IX applied all public school districts. This statute covers all forms of sex-bases harassment and bulling including sexual assault, bullying based on failure by a student to conform to gender stereotypes, as well as sexual harassment. Most importantly, the statute protects both boys and girls. Title IX provides that schools need to protect their students from any forms of sex-based harassment at schools, field trips, school buss and during other events that are sponsored by the school (Kopasz & Smokowski, 2005). Stoker & Bonds (2010) argue that sex-based harassment takes different forms. Title IX peer harassment case laws cover two types of harassment. These are sexual harassment as well as gender-based harassment. The category of sexual harassment covers all form s of unwelcome sexual conducts. These include request for sexual favors, unwelcome sexual advances, and physical sexual conduct, verbal and non-verbal sexual conduct. Some of the prohibited sexual conducts include offensive sexual comments, gestures, graffiti, jokes, as well as sexual explicit pictures, drawings and written materials. On the other hand, gender-based harassment incorporates all forms of physical, verbal or non-verbal aggression or hostility that is based on sex stereotyping. This includes bullying a student for demonstrating what stereotypical characteristics for their sex. It also involves harassing a student for their failure to conform to stereotypical traits of femininity and masculinity. As much as Title IX does not explicitly prohibit discriminating and bullying that is based on sexual orientation, it protects students of various sexual orientations including gays, lesbians, transgender as well as bisexuals against sex-based harassment and bullying. A good example of a case involving peer harassment is that of Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education as decided by the Supreme Court (Stoker & Bonds, 2010). In this case, a student, Davis, sued her local school board for permitting other students to continue harassing her. She was a fifth-grade girl who was physically and verbally harassed by one of her classmates. According to her, one of her classmates rubbed against her breasts and genital areas commented to her about wanting to get in bed with her. She complained to the teachers and the principal of the school severally. However, no step was taken no stop this harassment. The offending classmate was eventually charged with sexual battery, in the ruling, the Supreme Court held that students who are subjected to sexual harassment can use their school districts for damages in instances where the districts are deliberately indifferent to the sexual harassment. The court however stated that the complainant must establish that the federal funding recipient was deliberately indifferent to the known harassment and that this harassment was pervasive, severe, and objectively offensive. Based on this ruling, lower courts in different states in the United States have established that students may sue their school districts for deliberate indifference to harassment that is based on color, race, national origin as well as disability. The Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education case makes it very clear that complainants suing their district schools for peer harassment under Title IX are liable for compensatory damages. Even so, legal analyst believe that punitive damages are unavailable(Stoker & Bonds, 2010). Complainants who are still attending a school within the same district that was sued for deliberate indifference to peer harassment are liable to injunctive relive together with compensatory damages. In this regard, such students may have the implementation of anti-bullying training programs for teachers, students and school administrators. Moreover, inductive relief may also include the adoption of guidelines and policies aimed at addressing the type of bullying that was suffered by the complainant. The student may also be assigned a staff member to monitor bullying incidents. The second statute applicable in bullying cases is Title VI claims for bullying that is based on color, race or national origin. An example of case involving Title VI is the Zeno v. Pine Plans Central School District. In this case, Antony Zeno sued his school district for deliberate indifference to his harassment following his harassment by his peers for three and a half years. The school district was found guilty and awarded Zeno $1.25 million (Fried & Fried, 2011). The final statute is the claims for bullying based on disability under Title II. This statue prohibits recipients of federal funds from any forms of discrimination against and individual based on their disability. In conclusion, bullying cases are on a tremendous increase especially in the recent years. It is evident that bullying is generally hurting and traumatizing. It has numerous physical and psychological health effects. In addition, it is detrimental on educational achievement. For this reason, a number of anti-bullying policies and legislations have been enacted. They are aimed at combating bullying. These include various federal anti-discrimination statues such as Title II, Title VI and Title IX, which are aimed at ending bullying that is based on race, color, sex, national origin as well as disability. References Fried, P., & Fried, S. (2011). Bullies and Victims: Helping Your Child Survive the Schoolyard Battlefield. New York: Evans. Kopasz, K., & Smokowski, P. (2005). Bullying in school: An overview of types, effects, family characteristics, and intervention strategies. Children and Schools. 27(1), 101-109. Stoker, S., & Bonds, M. (2010). Bully Proofing Your School: A Comprehensive Approach for Middle Schools.Longmont: Sopris West Educational Services Swearer, S., Espelage, D.L.& Jimerson, S.R.(2010). Handbook of Bullying in Schools. New York: Routledge. Read More