When Will It Stop!

It’s not hard to stop, all it takes is will power. All it will take is to speak up and take action. All it will take is for school officials and parents to say we have had enough of bullying.

It happened again, another teen committed suicide because of bullying, this time in Texas. A thirteen-year-old boy was bullied because he was gay. His parents complained to the school authorities over and over again and the authorities did nothing.

Parents say bullies drove their son to take his life
They claim school district took no action
By PEGGY O'HARE HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Sept. 28, 2010

Asher Brown's worn-out tennis shoes still sit in the living room of his Cypress-area home while his student progress report — filled with straight A's — rests on the coffee table.

The eighth-grader killed himself last week. He shot himself in the head after enduring what his mother and stepfather say was constant harassment from four other students at Hamilton Middle School in the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District.

Brown, his family said, was "bullied to death" — picked on for his small size, his religion and because he did not wear designer clothes and shoes. Kids also accused him of being gay, some of them performing mock gay acts on him in his physical education class, his mother and stepfather said.

The 13-year-old's parents said they had complained about the bullying to Hamilton Middle School officials during the past 18 months, but claimed their concerns fell on deaf ears.

David and Amy Truong said they made several visits to the school to complain about the harassment, and Amy Truong said she made numerous phone calls to the school that were never returned.

The school district denied that they were ever informed about the bullying.

His parents said Brown had been called names and endured harassment from other students since he joined Cy-Fair ISD two years ago. As a result, he stuck with a small group of friends who suffered similar harassment from other students, his parents said.

His most recent humiliation occurred the day before his suicide, when another student tripped Brown as he walked down a flight of stairs at the school, his parents said.

When Brown hit the stairway landing and went to retrieve his book bag, the other student kicked his books everywhere and kicked Brown down the remaining flight of stairs, the Truongs said.

Durham [School district spokeswoman] said that incident was investigated, but turned up no witnesses or video footage to corroborate the couple's claims.

What will it take to end the bullying? Here in Connecticut we have an anti-bullying law, but the law has no teeth, there are no penalties for violating the law. One of the requirements of the law is that each school district must have an anti-bullying policy, keep a record of the incidents of bullying and submit an annual report to the state Department of Education. Less than half of the school districts have submitted the report and less than half of those districts reported any cases of bullying. Do you believe that a school never had a case of bullying, I don’t. Here in Connecticut we need to a law with teeth that fines school districts for violation of the law.

On the federal level, there is an anti-bullying bill, the Safe Schools Improvement Act (S. 3739), which would prohibit bullying in public school students. The School Reform Newsreported that,

The act would require schools that receive federal money to adopt certain codes of conduct prohibiting bullying and harassment based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or religion.

So what is holding up the bill? Republican opposition, they object to the fact that the bill includes sexual orientation and gender identity. The Republicans are being pressured from right wing Christian conservations who in their hatred and bigotry what to block anything that has to do with sexual orientation and gender identity. Meanwhile, students are being murdered and tormented until they only see one way out, to commit suicide.