Alexis Grimshaw, 8th grade, Nellie B. Chisholm Middle School, Montague.
Diana L. Coleman, Legal News
The Middle School Essay contest for Law Day 2012 scored savings bonds for the winning student essays. Alexis N. Grimshaw of NBC Middle School in Montague placed first for a $300 bond, Samantha Schalk of Reeths-Puffer was awarded a $200 bond for second place, Brandi Rice of NBC Middle School received a $150 savings bond, and Andrew Bobian of NBC Middle School received a $100 bond. Mr. Vermeulen of NBC was the teacher of the three NBC students and Mrs. Peterman was the Reeths-Puffer student’s teacher.
The winning essay presented by Alexis Grimshaw was titled “Cyber-Bullying” and Alexis has granted us permission to print her winning essay.
Do you think before you talk? Do you think before you type? Cyber-bulling is just as bad as bulling in person. Sometimes it can be worse. People, who get bullied at school, can go home and escape from the bully. Cyber-bullying is different. The kids and teens who get bullied can’t escape. It follows them everywhere. Cyber-bullying is the constant teasing and tormenting of another individual or a group of individuals on a social media. People in some cases get bullied until their death. Literally, some victims start to think of suicidal thoughts, a few victims follow through. Do we need a law? What would be the punishment? The question being asked is; “Should the appropriate punishment for bullying another student over the internet be an in school punishment or should the parents of the victim get involved with the court and outside situations that have nothing to do with the school
In Michigan, we have something called the Matt’s Safe School Law. It is about having anti-bullying policies in schools. It allows school officials to punish the bullies. The problem is that cyber-bullying happens outside of school. In this case, this law has no authority with cyber-bullying. The Matt’s Safe School Law was passed in the legislature on December 6, 2011. The problem is that Matt’s Safe School does not mention anything about cyber-bullying. This is a major problem. The thing is what would be the consequence for cyber-bullying. A trip to the office, detention, or suspension? Should the victim’s parents take this to court, or should they get a restraining order? Usually the drama and bullying that goes on outside of school gets brought into school. If that is the case, and the victim provides proof, it should lead to a possibility of suspension of the suspect. If it is at extreme levels of any kind, it should be brought up in court and maybe possible end up in a restraining order
In the court case Bethel School District vs. Fraser, Fraser got up in front of 600 students and gave a speech that was supposed to be a nominating speech of another student or promoting his candidacy to the school. Instead he spoke about inappropriate and sexual events of another student. He also made offences to women in general. The question that being asked here was, does the first amendment prevent a school district from punishing a high school student for giving a rude speech at a school assembly? The court answered no. It found that the school has the right to exclude rude and bad language in any school-associated activities. How does this case have anything to do with cyber-bulling? It does because the same rude and bad language is used on social networking sites. They why is it okay when students do this kind of thing on the internet and bring into the school atmosphere? It isn’t
But how much freedom of speech does the bully have. How mean is too mean? It is a hard thing to debate, but if other people are getting hurt repeatedly by the words that, someone is saying that should not be freedom of speech. If a person is harassing another person doesn’t the victim have the individual rights? Individual rights are the rights that a person is born with, right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. The government should protect these rights. The government should protect the right to pursuit of happiness to the victim, but they do not want to interfere with the bully’s rights either. The bully should not have all of their rights taken away but they should be limited. They should not be able to go on the harassing until they are torturing the other person
In the past years, 8% of teen deaths in the United States were by committing suicide. Many were the result of cyber-bullying. Teens can’t handle being tormented constantly by people. More than 75% of teens throughout the United States have cell phones. About 87% of these send text messaging for most of their communication. This makes it easier to bully since almost everyone has a cell phone. Only 70% of teens have computers, still almost everybody, who is constantly on a computer, has some kind of account on a social networking site. With most of the teens of the United States having access to these kinds of electronics it is easier for a bully to do his/her thing
There should be a law on how cyber-bullying is handled. There needs to be a law stating that if a cyber-bullying incident gets brought into school, the school should approach the problem and it should lead from detention to expulsion, depending how extreme the case. If the cyber-bullying is limited outside of school, the parents of the victim should bring the bully’s parents to court
“To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform,” –Theodore H. White.
As Theodore H. White said, “It is hard to be bullied. You feel like a loner, outcast, and depressed. Next time you are about to type that post, tweet about that one person, really think about what you are writing, it could backfire and end up hurting that other person’s feelings, and you can end up on the wrong end of the law.
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