Why Schools Are Not to Blame for Cyber Bullying

A young boy was once sitting on his computer when he saw an email from one of his peers. He opened the email, and soon enough realized he was being bullied. However, the young boy let the cyber-bullying get out of control. His parents told the school about it, but there was nothing they could do. The boy had to go to a new school where he wouldn’t be bullied. There are many problems like this that get out of hand, so much that the school can do nothing to help. Many people blame the school for not helping, when there is nothing they can do about it. Therefore, schools do not have the responsibility to respond to and protect students from the challenge of cyber-bullying, even if it’s off campus.

Schools do not have the responsibility to protect students from cyber-bullying because any law or regulation would be too close to breaking the law. There is a right given in the First Amendment of the United States' Constitution. This right guarantees free speech. Sandra Staub, a legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, was the first to bring this up. She believed that school officials would “prohibit speech that causes “emotional harm”, regardless of whether it creates a hostile environment at school.” For example, if a child was accusing his harassers of harassment, the school would still take care of it. However, his “harasser” wasn’t actually harassing him, this would violate the First Amendment. This leads to the fact that schools should not be held responsible for protecting students from the cyber-bully challenge.

The second reason schools should not be blamed for bullying within the school is because they cannot control what students do online or at home. Many teenagers don’t want to get caught bullyi...

... middle of paper ...

...ccountable for cyber-bullying.

Schools should not be legally bound to react to the act of students bullying their peers. They should not be bound by law to take care of cyber-bullying because a law or regulation would take schools to the brink of breaking the law, students would more or less not tell administration that they are being bullied, and schools cannot control what students do online or at home. Others would say that schools helping students with their bullies would empower students to stand up to their peers, however, the students would be taken care of, and not be taking care of themselves. There are many arguments about whether or not schools should take responsibility over cyber-bullying. However, if people do not come to an agreement with schools not taking responsibility for the students cyber-bullying problem, the schools will not be a better place.