Bullying bills battle it out for passage
Bullying bills battle it out for passage
Two bills aim to protect kids from bullying, but sexual orientation language in one may have doomed its chances.
BY EVAN S. BENN
ebenn@MiamiHerald.com
On the Web Rep. Ken Gottlieb's bill
On the Web Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff's bill
The teenage students walk into the Capitol with body piercings and spiked hair.
They stand in front of legislators and talk about being afraid when the school bell rings and about being the butt of vicious jokes in homeroom.
Some are gay, some are Muslim, some are black, and some are shy.
All have been victims of bullying.
''I'm a senior who has to eat lunch in the student-government office because when I go in the cafeteria, I get food thrown at me,'' Michael Freincle said at a recent House committee hearing.
'I get called names like `queer,' 'homo' and 'faggot' every day I walk through the cafeteria.''
Bullying is a phenomenon as old as school itself.
But after the Columbine High School shootings in 1999 and the recent rise of taunting through websites and text messages, lawmakers across the country have begun to pass laws designed to identify and punish bullies.
LOCAL POLICIES
Twenty-nine school districts in Florida currently have written policies against bullying and harassment, including Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach. Two Broward lawmakers are fighting to enact a statewide policy that would protect students in all 67 counties.
But the proposals from state Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, a Fort Lauderdale Republican, and Rep. Ken Gottlieb, a Hollywood Democrat, are different in a major way: One has a chance of becoming a law, the other does not.
Gottlieb has tried for the past six years to pass a bill that would ban harassment of students based on sexual orientation, religion, race, ethnicity and other factors frequently targeted by bullies, and it would require training for teachers to identify such bullying.
Last year was the first time the bill even got to a committee vote -- and it was promptly struck down.
Gottlieb doesn't see his bill going anywhere this year, either. The reason: Many legislators are reluctant to rally behind bills that protect gay rights.
''There are certain categories that people don't want to have,'' Gottlieb said. ``You have people who are up here, who are elected and in the political process, and they have difficulties discussing it. I think that shows you just how much we do need a policy.''
Bogdanoff cast one of the votes against Gottlieb's bill last year in committee.
Bogdanoff then decided to take up the bullying issue herself.
Her bill, which prohibits schools from including specific categories of targeted students in their anti-bullying policies, has been approved by two committees and has two more hearings before going to a full House vote.
Bogdanoff's bill is being touted as model anti-bullying legislation by a group called Bully Police USA.
The group's website, bullypolice.org, grades each state based on its anti-bullying laws. Florida is one of 27 rated as ''failing'' for its lack of a statewide policy.
`GAY-RIGHTS BILLS'
Brenda High, the group's founder and executive director, said she chose to support Bogdanoff's bill because it has a better chance of becoming a law than Gottlieb's.
''I've monitored these bills around the country for years, and the ones with victim definitions really struggle to get passed,'' High said last week from her home in Pasco, Wash. ``To be starkly honest, people see them as gay-rights bills, and that scares them away.''
Several students and equal-rights groups have come to Tallahassee in recent weeks to talk to legislators about the need for an anti-bullying law.
Those who support Bogdanoff's bill praise its inclusion of cyberbullying -- picking on other students through text messages or websites such as myspace.com -- and how it would take away state money from local school districts that do not adopt its requirements.
But its opponents say having categories of targeted students is necessary to protect victims and to help train adults to identify harassment.
Also, they worry that Bogdanoff's bill would invalidate the categorized anti-bullying policies in place within some school districts.
''It is essential and vital to identify specific categories that are the most prevalent ways of bullying,'' said Deborah Perez, a junior at Booker T. Washington Senior High in Miami and vice president of Miami-Dade Public Schools' student-government association. ``You can't prevent something unless you talk about it. Identifying specific students who are commonly known to be victims of bullying can be beneficial to students, faculty and staff when it comes to training.''
TIME RUNNING OUT
Odalys Acosta, faculty advisor for a peer-counseling group at Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High in Hialeah, supports Gottlieb's bill, not Bogdanoff's, but acknowledged that ``any law is better than no law.''
Like High and others, Acosta said she hoped the two lawmakers would come to a compromise that includes the best parts of both bills.
But with about half of the 60-day legislative session already finished, that seems unlikely.
''The problem is that some adults have no idea what the average teenager goes through in a single day,'' Acosta said. ``I don't think most grown-ups would make it to lunchtime in the shoes of a teenager.''
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