Progressive Voices

By Ian Palmquist

Lawrence King was 15, and he was different.

He was gay, and sometimes he expressed his gender differently from the other boys in his school, wearing makeup and jewelry.

Some of the other kids bullied and harassed him because he was different.

On February 12, Lawrence King was shot in the head in a classroom full of students at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, California because he was different. He died a few days later in the local hospital.

What if there were something we could do to prevent school shootings like the one in Oxnard here in North Carolina? What if there were something we could do to keep kids like Lawrence safe?

There is. The best way to prevent shocking violence like Lawrence King’s murder is to stop the daily violence of bullying and harassment in our schools.

Sometimes bullying is dismissed by those who think “boys will be boys.” Sometimes bullying is overlooked by teachers who think it will “make a man” out of the victim.

But we know that bullying is part of a culture of violence in our schools that sometimes ends with some students dead or wounded and others spending their adult lives in prison.

The U.S. Secret Service conducted a thorough study of fatal school shootings across the country, and they found a common theme. In more than three-quarters of the incidents, a history of bullying was a factor.

We know what works to reduce the incidence of bullying and harassment in our schools. Strong policies against bullying that protect all students and clearly list the classes of students who are most frequently targeted really do make our schools safer.

Students in schools with these polices are much more likely to feel very safe at school, and report that others are harassed much less often because of their physical appearance and sexual orientation, according to a 2005 Harris Interactive study.

These policies send a signal to students that bullying won’t be tolerated and to teachers that they are expected to step in, even if the victim is different.

Yet most North Carolina schools don’t have this kind of effective policy against bullying.

That’s not because bullying isn’t a problem in our schools. A 2005 survey of North Carolina students revealed just how prevalent it can be:

• 8 out of 10 North Carolina students reported that people at their school were harassed because of looks or body size.
• 7 out of 10 reported that people at their school were harassed because they were thought to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
• 3 out of 4 reported that people at their school were harassed because of the way they expressed their gender

We’ve been lucky in North Carolina. So far, there hasn’t been a fatal school shooting in our state.

But if we don’t take bullying seriously it’s only a matter of time until another kid who’s different, another child like Lawrence King, dies an unnecessary, preventable death.

Ian Palmquist is the Executive Director of Equality North Carolina. He remembers what it was like being different in North Carolina public schools.

 Email This Post  Print This Post

This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 4:53 am and is filed under Progressive Voices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.