Cyber-bullying

DES MOINES, Iowa — A bill designed to crack down on so-called cyber-bullying failed to advance in the Iowa state legislature this year, but Gov. Terry Branstad plans to keep working to toughen Iowa’s anti bullying laws.

During a dedication ceremony Monday of the Tyler Clementi Center at Rutgers University in New Jersey, U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, (D-N.J.) announced that he U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) have reintroduced legislation in Congress that would require colleges to implement anti-harassment policies.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Freshman state lawmaker, Rep. Brian Sims (D-Philadelphia), the first openly gay elected member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, is leading efforts in the state House to gain bipartisan support for an anti-bullying bill known as the Pennsylvania Safe Schools (PASS) Act.

CHICAGO — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Rutgers University has announced it has named a new student named for Tyler Clementi, a gay student who jumped to his death in 2010 after his roommate used a webcam to record Clementi in an intimate encounter with another man.

The officials are calling the impending death of young Jadin a “suicide”. It was not a suicide; it was the destruction of something innocent, something beautiful, something of supreme contribution exposed to an environment that valued it not at all. The facts support their word perhaps. No argument. A 15 year old boy took a rope to a playground and without assistance from any visible being, hung himself.

LA GRANDE, Ore. — A 15-year-old teen has been taken off life support and is in critical condition after hanging himself over what family members describe as anti-gay bullying. Jadin Bell of La Grande, Ore., went to the playground of Central Elementary School on Jan. 19, climbed on a play structure and hanged himself. He […]

DENVER — Most of Colorado’s school districts have yet to update their bullying policies to come into compliance with a 2011 state law protecting LGBT youth, a survey by the state’s largest LGBT advocacy organization shows.

ALBANY, N.Y. — The New York state legislature this week approved a bill that would require the state’s public schools to develop procedures to address complaints of email, texting and online harassment — also referred to as cyber-bullying.

Former Rutgers student Dharun Ravi was released from prison Tuesday after serving 20 days on a 30-day sentence for using a webcam to spy on his gay roommate who later committed suicide.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Legislation that would require Illinois schools to create anti-bullying programs and fully explain how they would investigate bullying instances failed to pass in the state Senate Tuesday amid fear it could be used to promote acceptance of homosexuality.

Tyler Clementi was bullied to death and the Judge heard guilty 288 times, yet sentenced his convicted antagonist to 30 days, 300 hours of community service and a $10,000 donation. While I do not doubt that Ravi was put through a measure of hell, knowing that he could be sentenced to a maximum of ten years and be the subject of deportation, I ask why this Judge even bothered to sentence him, at all.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — A New Jersey Superior Court judge has sentenced former Rutgers student Dharun Ravi to 30 days in prison and three years probation for spying on his gay roommate who later committed suicide.

BUHLER, Kan. — A Kansas middle school teacher has ignited a firestorm in the small rural Kansas community of Behler after posting an anti-gay rant on Facebook in which said same-sex marriage is akin to “murder, lying, stealing, or cheating.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has released a new video in which she calls for “stamping out bullying wherever it happens.”

PRIMGHAR, Iowa — The family of a gay Iowa teen who committed suicide over the weekend, is speaking out, and say that anti-gay bullying is the reason Kenneth Weishuhn Jr., took his own life.

PRIMGHAR, Iowa — Authorities in O’Brien County, Iowa are investigating the death of Kenneth Weishuhn, Jr., 14-year-old gay teen who committed suicide late Saturday night.

WELLSVILLE, Ohio — An Ohio teenager was in a coma Friday in the intensive care unit at Akron Children’s Hospital, a week after he tried to end his own life. Austin Rodriguez, 15, a student at Wellsville High School, told his parents last Thursday that they “didn’t know what was going on his personal life.”

Dharun Ravi, the former Rutgers University student who was convicted last week of invasion of privacy and bias intimidation, a hate crime, is speaking out for the first time since his college roommate, Tyler Clementi, jumped to his death in September 2010.

Today, less than seven percent of schools offer institutional support to LGBT students, such as an LGBT student center or programs director. Eighty-seven percent of schools fail to include sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policies. Protection for transgender people is even lower; only six percent of schools include gender identity in their non-discrimination statements.