Cyberbullying

Daily News has an article on a 12 year old named Rebecca. Rebecca was from Florida and committed suicide due to 15 girls from school bullying her. Rebecca received online messages, also known as being cyberbullied, asking why she has not killed herself yet and that she needed to kill herself. Rebecca was not bullied because she was different, she was bullied over a boyfriend issue. Rebecca was taken out of school where her mother home schooled her for a little bit, until she moved to another school. Rebecca enjoyed her new school, until the bullying followed her. The bullying caught up to her because of social media. She got away from the girls, but not the harassment. The Daily News stated Rebecca changed her name online to “That Dead Girl” and then the following Monday, she jumped off a building to her death. This occurred in September of 2013 which opened people’s eyes to how bad bullying is actually becoming and not just in person. The source of the problem was caused online, where it followed Rebecca everywhere she went. You can remove yourself from the situation, but cannot remove what is online. After this happened Florida passed a bullying law which left the schools to deal with the situation and that is not enough. Congress needs to take matters into their own hands and not allow schools to do the punishment.
Leaving the schools in charge of dealing with bullies does not solve anything. There is no justice made with the deaths that happen from bullying. Schools can suspend or expel someone, but is that a lesson learned? They can transfer schools, move towns, it does not matter because they are not being punished for their actions. Passing a law can be hard, but when will enough actually be enough? Although there are no federal laws directly addresses bullying. In some cases, bullying overlaps with harassment which is covered under federal civil rights laws where schools are obligated by law to address the problem, but addressing and stopping are two...