Argument 3: Schools

In my third and final argument I cover the topic of schools trying to interfere with off-campus bullyings, and believe they should not have the right to do so.

Third Argument

Parents and over-reacting people are not alone when it comes to approaching cyberbullying wrongly, schools often go out of their rights and try to handle outside of school issues. When a student is bullied off-campus the punishments should be handled off-campus as well. The only means for a school to discipline a student for cyberbullying actions is if they occur on campus or affect schooling. Justin Silverman writes in "Schools Should Not Interfere with Student Speech off Campus" e that the “Supreme Court created a new standard of review for student speech. Under this standard, school officials may prohibit or punish student speech only if the speech would ‘materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school’” (qtd. par. 3). When schooling has been affected is when schools should be able to interfere. Schools going out of their boundaries occurs too often when thinking they can deal with incidents that in no way affect the school. Some parents or teachers would argue that the bullying that happens outside of school carries over when the students see each other at school, but if nothing occurs at school or on campus then there is nothing they should be able to do. Of course, many will probably disagree on grounds that schools should not get involved because cyberbullying will lead to violence at school or that if schools do not intervene then some violent action will take course. School is where the kids see each other most often and where they could easily engage in a fight or other disruptive behavior. This would lead to a basis of thinking that schools should get involved before anything were able to take place, but that is very hard to judge if something really will happen or not. Most students tend to say hurtful comments when they get into an argument, but get over the fellings quickly and apologize so they do not have a bad reputation amongst the other students or friends of them. This is why a large number of people believe that school should not be interfering with issues occurring at home or elsewhere, but believe it should be left to the authorities. The police force should be contacted if the issue seems serious enough. Parents are very quick to contact schools when small issues arise, but many would wait until the issue was actually become serious if they were required to contact the police. When contacting the police, people avoid having complaints that will not be taken seriously. Some people believe if parents knew they would have to contact the police that much nonsense that is reported would be avoided. Anyone familiar with the hastey comments given by overprotective parents should agree that the law should be the people to contact to avoid complaints that are not serious enough for the police to be involved. The law should have the ultimate authority when it comes to issues of harassment.