Bullying
The act of using force to coerce an individual into doing their own bidding at an involuntary perspective at most, to humiliate or intimidate them is known as bullying. Bullies assume control over their subjects from them having a vantage point over them acquired through physical or social power. The most common acts of bullying occur from people’s differences in race, sexuality or gender. Consequences of bullying are a well-documented agenda ergo justifying the need to take acute action against the pandemic that continues to grow with the evolution of the society. New Jersey government noticing the effects of bullying has implemented a new law that intends to eradicate bullying by ensuring that all parties involved take liability to its prevalence. This journal aims at conquering to efforts that New Jersey has undertaken to eradicate bullying by supporting the measures that it endorses consecutively passing a message to other governments to atone the same level of strictness in handling bullying.
Governments come up with laws against bullying, but in most cases they only do so to convince the public on their awareness to the situation while paying little or no attention to the case. New Jersey new law has provided an eye opener to other governments in the need to have laws that protect their children from bullies and sends a resounding message to those who bully others on the consequences of their actions. Cases occurring from the prevalence of bullying, some of which lead to fatality only fuel an already burning fire of the need to find solutions that are reasonable and effective. An example of this is as indicated in the times article on the case of Clementi who is a student that takes his life after his friend outs him publicly on his sexuality without the thought of the effects of his actions’. The perpetrator charge was hate crime, a steep punishment, but even so not enough to atom for the irreplaceable life of a young student. Another case is that of Sladjana Vidovic who resulted to suicide which according to her was an escape from bullying. The parents reacted by suing the school for their irresponsibility in safeguarding their daughter. Statistics indicate that the high school girl was among five of the fatalities that have occurred because of bullying.
According to the article, New Jersey has received a lot of backlash from implementing the bill. Parents are of the opinion that implementing and running the new structure would be too expensive while teacher consider this to overstretch their work description. Other parties concerned were that the new law would act as a bargaining chip to lawyers. Lawyers would use it as grounds for them to exploit students and parents by finding different ways to file lawsuits from the diversity of the bill. Adam Cohen agrees with the arguments of the concerned parties by coinciding to the numerous aspects that characterize the implementation of the law. The law has eighteen pages of components required in its implementation. Some of the components include training of the staff and the use of experts as consultants. The law also requires that school monitor students expressions with the inclusion of speech in and out of school. It is perfectly logical that change would come with a steep price, but a greater fulfillment would be the advantage gained from implementing the new law on both parties and most importantly the students.
Cohen contends with the reasoning of concerned parties that implementation of the new law comes at a great cost, but he is not blind to the fact that even before the law began usage, New Jersey courts still handled a numerous number of cases that involve bullying. New Jersey Supreme Court in the year 2007 also mandated that a student had the right to sue his school district under the antidiscrimination law in case of any acts of discrimination over their sexual orientation. This shows that the application of the new law only acts as a more integral substitute to already existing laws and is not the revelation of a concept that only became familiar after its adoption.
New Jersey has undoubtedly set a standard that all governments should aim to follow. Through their aggressiveness to counter bullying, they have acted as a reference point to other governments and their citizens by proving that the problem is a reality and that it should be handled with consummate regard as would any other state problem.
