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Comment by shruubi | Hacker News Reader

As someone who was the victim of a lot of bullying myself, this article is a very mixed bag for me.

For one, I like the idea of creating some degree of systems of support to try and prevent things like school shootings from happening by stopping them before they get too far.

On the other hand, unless there are more details missing from this article, it really seems like the only person who got any degree of punishment is the student who was being bullied.

You know what stops bullies that doesn't involve shooting them? Ruthless consequences for their actions. Schools love to talk about their 'zero tolerance' policy for bullying, but if there are no consequences outside of a teacher telling the bully to stop, then that is definitely less of a 'zero tolerance' policy and more of a 'mostly tolerated' policy. Zero tolerance means immediate suspensions, expulsions, supporting police reports for physically violent bullying etc.

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Similar perspective from me, I really don’t understand why people in authority are allergic to making the correct decision and punishing bullies or even worse punishing the victim.

From my own personal experience being bullied. I went to teachers and the principal to speak up that I was being bullied, the teachers themselves witnessed it many times and acknowledged it was happening but the bully suffered no consequences other than being told to stop. My parents were awesome and got involved but even after that the school refused to do anything because the bully was “sorry”. Finally my parents told me they had my back and would support me if I wanted fight back but either way they were taking me out of that school at the end of the year. Punched the guy right in the face the next time after repeatedly telling him I would if he didn’t stop. I was immediately physically escorted to the principal’s office and my parents had to pick me up. The only reason I didn’t get expelled is because the bully didn’t want to admit I got the better of him so the school saw no fault. Never got bullied again by that kid. My story isn’t to say resorting to violence is the right thing to do but instead why did it even have to get to that point to begin with? So many members of authority could have issued consequences for behavior they witnessed but chose not to.

As someone who also was bullied heavily as a kid, my best explanation is that a lot of the adults who are in the posittions of authority were probably never the ones being bullied as kids (and some of them maybe were themselves the bullies). A large number of kids aren't directly involved in the bullying learn to keep their heads down and not get involved. The victims of the bullying will always remember it quite vividly, but those who just saw it happen without the same strong emotions attached to the memories won't recall the specifics of just how frequent or severe it was, but just have a vague recollection of bullying happening sometimes. When they end up seeing something similar happening in front of them again as adults, it wouldn't shock me if the same instincts around not getting involved or thinking about it too hard resurface and make it easier for them to rationalize not intervening.

For those of us who identify with the victims, this is almost unfathomable, but over the years I've been able to recognize that quite a lot of people don't actually identify in the victim in this situation. The idea that this might be the case didn't ever occur to me for years because of how much my insecurity and anxiety as an adult are related to my experiences of being bullied as a kid, so it made it hard to realize that this core emotional experience that's impossible for me to separate from my conception of what it's like to be a kid just doesn't exist for most people.

I completely agree.

“It cannot be stopped camp” clearly has different priorities or is of the opinion that “weak deserves to be bullied.”

One of my boys was invited out by some classmates, then beaten up in a back alley. I called the police who visited their homes. They got the message that they'd be in court if they did anything like that again.

End of problem.

If your kid is bullied, call the police. Most school authorities are bully enablers.

The article does cover the bullies:

  Mr. Carinci summoned the students and told them that the bullying had to end. The superintendent told them that they could be suspended or expelled.

Ragging (esp. in STEM places; often violent; no slapping, et cetera, was not even considered violent) was a pathetic menace where I live. It is still not eradicated, but has shrunk to something so little that it is not a norm anymore or a right passage for seniors. How did it shrink? When seniors started getting expelled – no quarters given if ragging was proven.

Yup, cracking the toughest of entrance exams here after toiling for years in school (sometimes after) and going to those colleges and then getting kicked out (often with a piece of paper that ensured you didn't get admission elsewhere either) just because you couldn't resist harassing/abusing/attacking/hurting freshers who had just entered college did the trick. Before that? Threats, warnings, and policy-making just on paper did zilch. It was literally a national move sort of - coming right from the top, forcing states to act.. etc.

Is this sort of thing as common in US colleges as it is portrayed in movies?

My experience of university (not in the US) was that by then students had grown up, and there wasn’t any bullying going on that I saw. Students were treated as adults, violence was dealt with by the police.

Why would a bully care if they are suspended or expelled.

The most stubborn bullies in reality will often only reliably respond because they will starve to death, face violence, or have necessities taken away. I.e. a Nazi can't do nazi shit at work or they will get fired and starve.

A child cant get fired. Their parents must provide no matter what, and it is neglect if they don't and abuse if they use violence. End result is a bully knows the worst can happen is they lose luxuries and get a vacation from school, but always be taken care of. So really any punishment you can mete out is a nothingburger.

A difficult problem to solve indeed.

In fact, a child can get fired. They can get kicked off of sports teams, …. But yes, it is a difficult problem. I liked a lot of what I read in the article.

  First, they identified the problem students.
  Second, they tried something.

It's also very different to be warned that you "could get suspended or expelled" and actually have it happen. A warning isn't a punishment, but a communication that a punishment might occur, assuming that the one giving the warning actually follows through with observing whether behavior changes and is willing to actually carry out the punishment in the case that it doesn't. Kids are just as aware of this as adults and can make judgments about how likely this is when they receive warnings.

Yes, the literal hours of video of footage of abuse that by the own claims of the authorities could have culminated in a violent response were "punished" with a single verbal warning. As the parent commenter says, they didn't get punished.

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