Bullying and the Law

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Bullying and the Law
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Iowa Civil Rights Commission

• The state administrative agency which
  enforces the Iowa Civil Rights Act of 1965
  (Chapter 216 of the Iowa Code)

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Our Mission Our Vision

• Vision A state free from Discrimination
• Mission To enforce Civil Rights through
  Compliance, Mediation, Advocacy, and Education

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Protected Bases

• Race
• Color
• Creed
• National Origin
• Religion
• Sex/Pregnancy
• Sexual Orientation
• Gender Identity

• Physical Disability
• Mental Disability (not in Credit)
• Age (Employment and Credit only)
• Familial Status (Housing and Credit only)
• Marital Status (Credit only)
• Retaliation

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Defining Bullying
Bullying is defined as repeated and systematic
abuse and harassment of another and others. A
student is being bullied when he or she is
exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative
actions on the part of one or more students.
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Bullying
Like sexual harassment, the relationship between
the bully and the person being bullied, is one in
which there is a difference in power. This power
differential can be real (based on age, physical
size, position) as well as, perceived. Unlike
sexual harassment, with bullying there is an
intent to harm.
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Every school year, literally millions of
teenagers suffer from emotional violence in the
form of bullying, harassment, stalking,
intimidation, humiliation, and fear.   The U.S.
Department of Education reports that 77 of
middle and high school students in small
Midwestern towns have been bullied.
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Understanding bullying, harassment, and other
forms of emotional violence starts with
understanding the power of acceptance and
rejection in human motivation. And not just on an
individual level, since part of the meaning of
acceptance and rejection lies in what groups you
identify with. Race, gender, social class,
sexual orientation, physical appearance,
religion, and ethnic heritage are all categories
relevant to this process.
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Some Direct Bullying Behaviors Include
Physical Verbal Non-verbal

• Hitting, kicking, pushing, shoving, spitting,
  fist fights, invasion of personal space, hazing,
  initiation rites, extortion/vandalism,
  inappropriate touching/groping
• Taunting, teasing, racial slurs, mimicking, name
  calling, verbal sexual harassment (same gender
  cross gender)
• Threatening, obscene gestures, indifference and
  exclusion

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Some Indirect Bullying Behaviors Include
Getting another person to assault someone
Spreading rumors, gossiping Deliberate
exclusion from a group or activity Cyber bullying
Physical Verbal Non-verbal
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Why Children Bully?
Learned behavior Intimidation Control
Power Humiliation Power domination Threats to
ones safety Low self-esteem
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Rejection is perhaps the most important and most
fundamentally destructive form of psychological
maltreatment, but it is not the only form. At
least four others deserve mention here
terrorizing, isolating, neglecting, and
corrupting. All are relevant to understanding
emotional violence at school.
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Terrorizing is the use of fear to torment and
manipulate. Isolating involves cutting someone
off from essential relationships. Neglecting is
the denial of basic emotional needs by the peer
group. Corrupting means learning ways of
thinking, speaking, and acting that make a child
increasingly unfit for normal or healthy
experiences.
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Myths of Adolescents at School

• Myth 1 Our schools are safe
• Myth 2 Kids wont tell on other kids
• Myth 3 Kids will be kids boys will be boys
• Myth 4 There will always be bullying, and there
  is nothing you can do about it
• Myth 5 School violence affects only a small
  fraction of our kids
• Myth 6 Kids have to learn to deal with bullying
  and harassment on their own
• Myth 7 Adopting a prison approach to schools
  makes them safer

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Harassment
In 2001, the American Association of University
Women (AAUW) released results from a survey of
2,064 students in grades eight through eleven in
public schools. They found that in general, 20
percent of all kids are afraid some or most of
the time that someone will hurt or bother them at
school. This held true for boys and girls, in
suburban, rural, and urban areas. There was no
difference among them.
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Of the teens who were polled, 81 percent said
they had been sexually harassed during school
time. The harassment was about equal for boys and
girls, a finding that had not changed since their
last survey in 1993. Half of the students
admitted to sexually harassing someone else.
Disturbingly, 38 percent said that teachers and
other school employees sexually harass students.
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On May 24, 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
that any school receiving federal money can face
a sex-discrimination suit for failing to
intervene energetically enough when a student
complains of sexual harassment by another
student. (This applies to teacher to student
harassment as well.) The case, Davis vs. Monroe
Board of Education, started as a lawsuit brought
by the mother of a Georgia fifth-grade girl who
was harassed by a classmate.
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Iowa Civil Rights Commission

• Grimes State Office Building
• 400 E. 14th Street
• Des Moines, Iowa 50319
• 515-281-4121
• 800-457-4416 (toll free)
• fax [phone]
• www.state.ia.us/government/crc