Still Disconnected: Current Failures of Statutory Approaches to Bullying Prevention in Schools

This Article will offer a brief critique of current bullying legislation and suggest changes to the legislation designed to achieve the good intentions that usually motivate such legislative efforts. It will also briefly address some of the less well-meaning legislative efforts and suggest that legislators duped by their uncharitable colleagues into passing counter-productive bullying legislation take the necessary steps to reverse the damage. Because of the brevity of this Article, I will focus primarily upon weaknesses that legislatures should address and will not discuss the strengths that can be found in a few legislative efforts to deal with bullying in schools. Section I of the Article will examine the most serious and most common flaw in anti-bullying statutes - the failure to require schools to engage in whole-school processes to transform bullying cultures. Section II will consider the counter-productive effects of crushing reporting requirements contained in some statutes, and Section III will discuss the lack of required ongoing assessments. Section IV will describe the especially troubling obstacles some legislatures have placed in the paths of LGBT students seeking protection from their bullying peers. Section V will examine constitutionally suspect definitions of bullying that give schools too much authority and too much responsibility for bullying that occurs off-campus