Cyberbullying Laws

Law for cyberbullying: every school district has an anti-bullying policy. The law defines bullying as intimidation or harassment that would make the students feel danger or physical harm to themselves. In addition to Missouri statutes and regulations that address cyberbullying and other forms of harassment in schools, the state’s criminal law also prohibits bullying and harassment, regardless of whether the activity occurs online. For example, if a high school student takes an unflattering picture of a classmate and sends it to all of her friends with hurtful comments. Suddenly, the target student is being teased by more than half of her classmates. So instead of one instance of bullying, it often takes on a life of its own. Until recently, no laws specifically addressed …show more content…
As such, cyberbullying may often be treated as a civil, rather than a criminal matter.School rule for cyberbullying: schools can take action in cyberbullying incidents. Many states have taken the easy way out by simply passing laws saying effectively “schools need to deal with this.” Not only have they stopped short in terms of providing specific instructions or even a framework from which schools can evaluate their role, but they have not provided any additional resources to address these issues. To be sure, schools should bring their bullying and harassment policies into the 21st Century by explicitly identifying cyberbullying as a proscribed behavior, but they need to move beyond the behaviors that occur on school grounds or those that utilize school-owned resources. But in order to do this they need guidance from their state legislators and Departments of Education so that they draft a policy and procedure that will be held up in court. School, technology, and privacy lawyers disagree about what should (or must) be in a policy. It’s no wonder many educators are simply throwing their hands