Stopping Bullies

Law requires S.C. schools to quell youthful meanness

Public school officials in our communities bill the provisions of the new Safe School Climate Act, a crackdown on bullying in school, as a different characterization of behavior that they already punish. That's not quite right.

The act, which took effect Monday, defines as bullying any kind of harassment or intimidation that harms a student physically or emotionally, damages his or her property or puts him or her in fear of harm. The new law also bans insulting a student or group to the extent school operations are disrupted. That broad brush covers teasing and fighting, which schools haven't typically considered bullying.

Some readers may scoff that political correctness at last has caught up with commonplace schoolyard behavior - that the ban on teasing stifles students' free speech. But children aren't as well-equipped as adults to deal with insults and mockery. Words that strike adults as harmless joshing can devastate kids, prompting them to throw fists in return - inviting a beating.

Or they can endure their pain in silence - inviting more mockery. Pain that builds up over time sometimes manifests itself in violence. One common denominator among kids who take guns to school and wound or kill classmates is that they were targets for repeated teasing.

That potential alone justifies defining insults as bullying and subjecting youngsters who utter them into line for the punishment that attaches to bullying: removing them from classes, suspending them and expelling them in extreme cases. Teachers across the state will be trained to recognize and swiftly punish every form of bullying envisioned in the law.

Besides benefiting weak, nonassertive kids who typically attract bullying, the law also will benefit youngsters inclined toward meanness and aggression. Swift, certain punishment tends to clarify the mind and discourage anti-social behavior. Swift, certain punishment, over time, prospectively can transform many boorish kids into decent young people inclined toward civility.

The Safe School Climate Act should promote learning in every S.C. school. For that reason, it is one of the better pieces of school legislation to come out of the General Assembly in recent years.