Administration Issues Anti-Bullying Guidance To Schools...More Comprehensive Measures Still Needed

[ProSense]

Administration Issues Anti-Bullying Guidance To Schools, But More Comprehensive Measures Still Needed

Responding to the growing number of LGBT teen suicides in recent weeks, the Obama administration announced today that “schools that don’t address the bullying of gay students may lose U.S. funds for not enforcing gender-discrimination laws.” In a first of its kind anti-bullying guidance distributed to some 15,000 school districts and colleges that receive federal funds, the Department of Education clarifies that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 “requires schools to take action against bullying—including gender-based and sexual harassment of LGBT students.”

“A school is responsible for addressing harassment incidents about which it knows or reasonably should have known,” the memo instructs. “In all cases, schools should have well-publicized policies prohibiting harassment and procedures for reporting and resolving complaints that will alert the school to incidents of harassment.” The memo provides “hypothetical examples of how a school’s failure to recognize student misconduct as discriminatory harassment violates students’ civil rights” and describes “how the school should have responded in each circumstance.” Here is the example of LGBT bullying:

Although Title IX does not prohibit discrimination based solely on sexual orientation, Title IX does protect all students, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students, from sex discrimination. When students are subjected to harassment on the basis of their LGBT status, they may also, as this example illustrates, be subjected to forms of sex discrimination prohibited under Title IX. The fact that the harassment includes anti-LGBT comments or is partly based on the target’s actual or perceived sexual orientation does not relieve a school of its obligation under Title IX to investigate and remedy overlapping sexual harassment or gender-based harassment. In this example, the harassing conduct was based in part on the student’s failure to act as some of his peers believed a boy should act. The harassment created a hostile environment that limited the student’s ability to participate in the school’s education program (e.g., access to the drama club). Finally, even though the student did not identify the harassment as sex discrimination, the school should have recognized that the student had been subjected to gender-based harassment covered by Title IX.In this example, the school had an obligation to take immediate and effective action to eliminate the hostile environment.

“This is a wonderful first step as far as what the Department of Education is capable of doing with the existing laws, now we need that comprehensive law like the Safe Schools Improvement Act that gives more clarity to the states and the school district as to how they can address this problem,” Daryl Presgraves, Media Relations Manager of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) told me during a phone interview.

“The practice right now falls to the states to enact enact anti-bullying laws absent any sort of federal action which we are hopeful will happen in the future.” Currently, 45 states that have enacted anti-bullying legislation but only 10 have a law that protects students from bullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity. A 2005 survey conducted by GLSEN found that these general laws do very little to prevent LGBT bullying, while “LGBT students who were covered by a comprehensive safe school policy that specifically protects sexual orientation were less likely to report being harassed at school, more likely to tell school officials when incidents of harassment occurred..and more than twice as likely to have a teacher intervene when harassment occurred versus students covered by a non-enumerated, or ‘generic,’ policy.” “Having a law that says don’t bully is great and feels good, but in practice, doesn’t necessary do a whole lot to address bullying in schools,” Presgraves added.

There are two pending pieces of federal legislation that would help enhance lax standards.. The Safe Schools Improvement Bill — sponsored by Representative Linda Sánchez (D-CA) in the House — would require schools and districts receiving federal funds “to adopt codes of conduct specifically prohibiting bullying and harassment, including on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.” Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) Student Non-Discrimination Act would prohibit discrimination in schools on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.

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[Manifestor_of_Light]

1. What if the bullied student is not gay? Are they protected?

I ask,because I was bullied for being smart and ahead in school, and I was little.

I got called "queer" a million times a day for years, because that was the worst insult they could come up with. This was before the word "gay" was in common usage.

I was straight but they used the word "queer" because it was the worst insult they could throw.

As a straight person, would I have been protected under this law?

[slackmaster]

2. That's crazy talk!

I posted that I had been bullied partly as a result of having to wear glasses at an early age, and the response was basically "Suck it up, four-eyes!"

[vaberella]

4. Someone said that to you? That's horrible. Bullying is fuckin' disgusting.

People then don't know how far some students will go. I had to deal with a lot of viciousness in high school. My natural hair was one, being intelligent was another, being one of the few Black students in a majority hispanic another, being the lone anti-religious student. There was a lot of flack, a lot of mistreatment. I had a hit list on students I wanted to hurt because of their abuse. It wasn't fun and people need to respect that.

Bullying is not a right of passage. It hurts and can lead to serious consequences if not addressed and stopped---at any degree.

[slackmaster]

6. I wore glasses and had a German surname in the 1960s

It wasn't just "Suck it up, four-eyes!. It was "Heil Hitler and suck it up, four-eyes!"

That eventually made me a stronger person.

:D

[vaberella]

3. Yeah they are. I was bullied for the same reason as you.

We are protected. Many of us just don't seek it to be honest. I never told anyone about it and just dealt with it. And most of us knew if we did tell we'd get more shit by the students. However, under new laws since a lot of kids are killing themselves over bullying---the new stuff has charges being pressed on the other kid for bullying. So now it's going beyond just a reprimand and detention. I think one reason is the case of the girl who was bullied and she was from Ireland or something and had recently moved to the states. She was bullied and told to die and she did. Then there was the case of the girl who was committed suicide through bullying on myspace. So I think more and more the new bullying laws are more general and directed to any youth who has been threatened or feels threatened by other students. LGBT youth are definitely going through a specific kind of bullying but they will fall under the same rights as any other person who's being bullied. God...scarily enough---I remember contemplating suicide because of abuse by other students in school--and I went to all girls Catholic. Girls catholic schools are vicious.

[Igel]

5. Perhaps not under this law.

Under others.

Teachers get to write lesson plans, teach, and assess learning. They get to prep students for the test. They get to make sure that students are following a wide variety of laws and regulations, both state and federal and local, in addition to simply maintaining order in their classroom in order to be able to teach and assess.

In all of this, the only thing that many believe should be the basis for assessing teaching and administration is learning.

Of course, the one thing that can't actually be under teacher control is the change of state that needs to occur within the students' brains, usually referred to as "learning." Unfortunately, most people seem to think that the students' and their families aren't responsible for that, so that leaves it to the teachers.