Bullying & Victim's Rights

Everyone seems to agree that something must be done about bullies in school, but no one is talking about the rights of the victims of bullies. Efforts to reduce or eradicate bullying in general certainly would benefit everyone, past and future bully-victims included, but other than that, the system doesn’t pay much attention to the victim. Often the bully is placed right back in the classroom in close proximity to the victim, creating at best a threatening environment and at worst an invitation to the bully to re-offend. A major problem is that the parents of the victim receive no feedback regarding the punishment imposed by the school on the bully. The reason for this is that the law – in this case, Massachusetts state law that is controlled by Federal statutes – protects the privacy rights of the student being punished. The law completely prohibits school officials from saying anything about punishment of a student. The absence of this type of information predictably causes the parents of the victim to doubt that the school system is doing anything, or at least anything effective, to deal with the threat to their child. This undercuts public confidence in the system, particularly in cases where the matter is being effectively dealt with, but it also protects ineffective schools from the pressure that public scrutiny can bring. As I said, this is all dictated by Federal law. Last spring, I found myself speaking with Congressman Marty Meehan while on the air on local radio station WCAP. I reminded the Congressman, the former First Assistant District Attorney of Middlesex County, that the law grants considerable rights to the victims of crimes (to be present at sentencing, to speak at sentencing, to be informed of the punishment imposed) while victims of school bullying have no such rights. He agreed that the present situation seemed unfair, and put me in contact with one of his staff who could investigate the matter. A few weeks later, the Congressman’s staffer reported that there was no Federal law that gave any rights to the victims of bullying and that no bill currently pending before Congress would establish such a right. I got the distinct impression that Congressman Meehan wasn’t about to file such a bill, so if you bump into him sometime, you might ask if he would consider doing so.