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What Schools
Can Do To Protect
Their Students
From Online Bullying
One
typical school day, the high school principal receives a visit from an angry
parent. It seems the parent’s son has been the object of a practical joke and
is refusing to come to school until something is done.
When
the principal asks what the problem is, she is directed to go to a Web site
that she recognizes as one that students regularly use for chat. Once on the
site, the parent directs the principal to a short video and asks her to play
it.
What
the principal sees is a video of this parent’s son acting as if he were in a
Star Wars movie scene. Stifling a laugh, the principal says that she will
investigate and get back to the parent as soon as possible.
Once
the parent has left, the principal looks at the video once more. It is
obviously footage taken at school on the stage; the student in the video is a
member of the AV club and is known for helping to videotape school events. The
parent had said that the video is now “all over the Web” and is causing his son
untold mental anguish. So the principal does an Internet search and finds that
there are over 5,750,000 hits!
How
should she respond? What responsibility and liability, if any, does the school
have? How could this have been prevented?
Real-life
Cyberbullying
This
scenario, while based on a real case, is rapidly becoming an issue that is
facing nearly every school official today. After all, we are living in a
digitally connected age where children are natives and we adults are the
immigrants.
The
real life “star” of this video, was the target of worldwide mockery when a
private video he made of himself practicing his “lightsaber”
moves was uploaded to the Net by his friends at school.
He
was teased so much about the video, that he dropped out of school and finished
the semester at a local children’s psychiatric ward. His parents filed suit
against the families of his four classmates for damages of $160,000. According
to the suit, he “will be under psychiatric care for an indefinite amount of
time.”
Unfortunately,
this is not an isolated case of misuse of the power of the Internet. A seventh
grade boy in New York made a video of himself singing
a song to a girl he liked, who promptly posted it all over the Internet.
In
another case, a sophomore girl in New York was asked not to come back to school
this fall after she wrote a racist comment in an instant message to a friend
about a boy who jilted her. The comment ignited a controversy within the school
that spring.
All
of this bullying took place within the confines of what used to be a safe haven
for children: their own homes. Parents of these children don’t know what to do
or how to help their sons and daughters. When they turn to schools for help,
there is often little that can be done.
What
can a school do? One’s first instinct may be that this is really a case of Free
Speech. As one delves into the case law of the First Amendment, one must look
at one of the primary tests as determined by the U.S. Supreme Court in Tinker
v. Des Moines School District in 1969: was there any substantial disruption of
educational activities caused by the speech?
(See
editor’s note at end of article.)
What,
if any, authority do schools have about such cases? More questions are now
raised about the nature of the infraction. Was school owned equipment used in
either producing or distributing the video, image or text? If so, then the
Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) is the document to look at.
By
both state and federal mandates, school districts must have an AUP. Contained
within that document should be language about both the unacceptable use of
school equipment and a statement about harassing or unacceptable behavior while
using the school’s equipment. If the bullying students did use school equipment
and the district can prove that the student has been made aware of the AUP,
then that is all the principal would need to act upon. This then becomes like
any other discipline case.
If
school equipment is not being used, can the school do anything? This issue now
can be treated as any other bullying case - just take the technology out of the
picture and it becomes like cases schools have addressed before. Since the
school acts in loco parentis (in place of parents), the school has
responsibility before, during and after school until a child gets home. This
means that the school is responsible for children and can act to protect them.
Undoubtedly,
the best type of protection from bullying is not having it occur at all. A
good, strong anti-bullying curriculum will go a long way to alleviating this
problem.
Tracking
the Cyberbully
There
are many disconcerting concepts involved in this type of harassment. First and
foremost is the anonymity of the bully. Technology allows the bully to be a
safe distance from the victim and seldom allows a victim to strike back.
No
longer does the bully have to be physically large in order to intimidate. With
the ability of students to create and abandon new instant messenger, e-mail and
chat room accounts, it is nearly impossible to track individual actions.
Oftentimes,
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have the legal mechanisms in place to
prosecute users who break the rules but there is little time to do this
difficult work. ISPs also find it difficult to draw the line between rude
behavior and harassing behavior. In addition, ISPs have a higher burden of
proof, as this is a First Amendment issue.
Another
issue that is continuing to confront society is the presence of cell phones and
personal digital assistants (PDAs) with cameras built in. There are a huge
number of issues with these pieces of technology. As camera phones become increasingly
affordable, embarrassing photographs of students continue to find their way on
the Internet.
Finally,
children do not know or understand the implications of pressing the send
button. How many times have adults sent an e-mail, only to realize that they
sent it to the wrong person?
Once
the send button is pushed, there is no way for the message, picture or video to
be retracted. In the age of large file-sharing services, an inappropriate
message or image can find its way into thousands of inboxes within seconds.
There is no time for reflection once the send button is hit!
Ultimately,
this issue goes back to teaching children what is acceptable and what is not.
Unfortunately,
mistakes that where made and seen by only a few
people are now potentially being seen by millions. Schools need to view
inappropriate behavior - not technology - as the problem.
Editor’s Note: This
article was reprinted from the Wisconsin Association of School Board’s January
newsletter. Tim
Peterson is the director of instruction at the Portage, Wisconsin Community
School District. He holds a doctorate in educational leadership from
Edgewood College.
MORE READING:
“District Regulation of Student
Speech” (September 2002)
“Discipline of Students for Content of
Personal Web Sites” (May 2000)
“Control of Curriculum Curtails Rights
of Speech” (March 1996)