If things keep progressing as they have been, a U.S. Department of Education survey on school bus bullying at is reportedly underway will have plenty of data to draw upon, especially in light of the arrest of three New York teens who allegedly beat another student who they believed to be gay.
That’s what Wall Street Journal blogger Sean Gardiner wrote this week from Long Island, where 18-year old David Spencer and 16-year-old Chase Morrison and Roy Wilson are out on $1,000 bail each after being charged for repeated attacks on a 14-year-old boy on a school bus traveling to and from Nassau BOCES High School.
According to police reports, the three boys in custody “stomped and kicked” the victim on Oct. 12 during the afternoon bus ride and harassed the boy based on his supposed sexual orientation. The next morning on the school bus, two of the boys made anti-gay slurs toward the 14-year-old while slapping him in the face and head. The school reported the incidents to police and the boys were subsequently arrested. Apparently the school bus driver and a monitor witnessed both attacks.
This comes on the heels of 10 Bronx gang members being arrested and charged last week with abducting, beating and sodomizing a 30-year-old man they believe had sex with two teenagers. Though that incident and the suicide of a Rutgers student last month who apparently grew distraught over his roommate posting on the Internet a video of a sexual escapade with another man.
The latest news of student bullying based on sexual orientation demonstrates that a renewed national effort by Education Deputy Secretary Kevin Jennings, who is gay himself, to stop all student bullying is needed now more than ever. Jennings was scheduled to be at the NAPT Summit in Portland to discuss such a topic. And hopefully the industry will also get an update on the education department’s efforts to get a handle on this problem.
Something must be done and done soon.
