High school disciplinary officials were once primarily concerned with discouraging and punishing student fighting and violence. Education policymakers, state legislatures, and high school disciplinary officials then turned their attention toward anti-bullying policies, programs, and initiatives, even when the bullying did not involve violence. More recently, lawmakers and high school disciplinary officials have focused on so-called cyberbullying, involving a student using a computer or other electronic device to send communications tending to harass and intimidate another student.
While cyberbullying is a genuine concern, high school disciplinary officials can blow cyberbullying charges out of all proportion to the wrong, punishing students harshly for vigorous but otherwise non-threatening exchanges over social media or in emails and text messages. Students wrongly suspended or even expelled for cyberbullying can suffer long-term educational, reputational, developmental, and vocational impacts. If your student faces cyberbullying charges, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team to help you fight those charges and preserve your student's future. Call 888.535.3686 now to tell us about your student's case, or complete this contact form.
High School Anti-Cyberbullying Laws
Federal law does not directly address cyberbullying. Congress lacks constitutional authority to directly regulate education. States instead regulate education. State legislatures across the country have adopted anti-bullying laws. Initially, those laws focused on in-person bullying between students. More recently, though, legislatures have extended anti-bullying laws to address cyberbullying. Forty-five of the fifty U.S. states criminalize cyberbullying or similar online harassment. Forty-six of the fifty states require schools to adopt policies prohibiting cyberbullying. Several more of the remaining states permit schools to do so.
What Is Cyberbullying?
State legislatures authorizing schools to discipline for cyberbullying have different definitions for cyberbullying. Your school's anti-cyberbullying policy may define the misconduct in its own way. But generally, cyberbullying involves intentional repeated harassing or threatening electronic communications likely to cause mental or emotional harm to a reasonable student, including interfering with education. The student committing the bullying must do so with the purpose of inflicting the harm. The conduct must generally involve more than a single communication. And the harassment and threats must be of such a reprehensible nature as to cause a reasonable student harm, not simply an overly sensitive student.
Ohio's anti-cyberbullying law provides a typical example. The law prohibits “harassment, intimidation, or bullying,” including any “electronic” act that a student directs more than once toward another student and that either causes mental or emotional harm or “is sufficiently severe, persistent, or pervasive that it creates an intimidating, threatening, or abusive educational environment for the other student.” Ohio's law requires school districts to adopt anti-bullying policies. Texas has a similar anti-cyberbullying law, although the state expressly extends the definition of electronic devices to include “cellular or other type of telephones, computers, cameras, electronic mail, instant or text messaging, social media applications, websites, or any other internet-based communication tool.”
High School Anti-Cyberbullying Policies
High schools across the country have adopted anti-cyberbullying policies to comply with state mandates. Many of those cyberbullying policies appear in broader policies condemning and punishing other forms of bullying. The Chicago Public Schools provide an example of an anti-cyberbullying policy. The policy prohibits bullying generally but then addresses cyberbullying specifically. The Chicago Public Schools policy defines cyberbullying as “using information and communication technologies to bully” including “technology that is not owned, leased, or used by the school district when an administrator or teacher receives a report that bullying through this means has occurred.” It also requires schools to provide students with internet safety training covering cyberbullying. Using a school computer to bully another student would violate the Chicago Public Schools policy, but so would using a personal device.
Examples of High School Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying can take many forms. The student doesn't have to use certain words or devices or cause specific harm. The key to recognizing potential cyberbullying is to look for the communication's coercive nature. The following acts may well fall within the typical definitions school policies give to cyberbullying:
- a high school senior repeatedly sends profanely disparaging text messages to another student on campus and in class after the student rejected the senior's dating requests, causing the student to leave the classroom in tears on several occasions;
- a high school junior uses a school computer to post several derogatory and threatening messages on a school chat board about members of a school social club, causing other students to tease, mock, and ridicule the club members;
- a high school sophomore uses a personal tablet device to send lewd and profane videos to a student whom the sophomore does not like, hoping that the messages will cause the student to withdraw from the school interactions;
- a high school freshman sends several emails using school computers and personal devices to another student, threatening to physically harm the student unless the student joins the freshman's gang and wears gang colors.
High School Cyberbullying Sanctions
State legislatures generally authorize public schools to impose discipline up to school suspension and expulsion as a sanction for cyberbullying. Schools accordingly commonly adopt anti-cyberbullying policies, giving school officials broad discretion to choose the form of discipline. The Los Angeles Unified School District provides an example policy, citing the relevant state code provision while stating that “cyberbullying, or bullying committed by means of an electronic act, may result in student discipline, including suspension or expulsion.” Suspension or expulsion, though, may not fit the wrong. Discipline at the high school level should generally focus on shaping student behavior and improving student character, not on vengeance and punishment. If your student faces high school suspension and expulsion for cyberbullying, let our attorneys help you negotiate alternative relief such as remedial education and training.
Discipline for Off-Campus Cyberbullying
About half of state legislatures authorize schools to discipline for off-campus cyberbullying that impacts the school's students in their instructional program. Schools are generally concerned with the school environment, not the home, street, or neighborhood environments. Schools have only limited authority to regulate off-campus student conduct. But, some student conduct that occurs off campus can affect students in their on-campus learning. The twenty-eight state legislatures that authorize schools to regulate off-campus cyberbullying do so on the basis of the conduct's interference with school learning.
Florida's anti-cyberbullying law provides an example. The law first prohibits on-campus cyberbullying “[t]hrough the use of data or computer software that is accessed through a computer, computer system, or computer network within the scope of a public K-12 educational institution.” The law then extends that prohibition to cyberbullying “[t]hrough the use of data or computer software that is accessed at a nonschool-related location, activity, function, or program or through the use of technology or an electronic device that is not owned, leased, or used by a school district or school, if the bullying substantially interferes with or limits the victim's ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities, or opportunities offered by a school or substantially disrupts the education process or orderly operation of a school.”
All cyberbullying is, in a sense, off-campus because of its virtual nature. When a student uses an electronic device to harass and threaten another student, the student may be using the device anywhere, whether at home or at school. But, some cyberbullying occurs when a student uses a device while at school, on school grounds, or during school hours. Law clearly authorizes schools to discipline and discourage that form of on-campus cyberbullying. Yet if the same student uses the same device off campus to communicate the same harassing and threatening message, the school may well be able to discipline for that off-campus conduct. Consult our attorneys if you face disciplinary charges for off-campus communications.
Discriminatory Cyberbullying
Some state laws authorize or require schools to include anti-discrimination provisions in their anti-cyberbullying policies. Cyberbullying need not focus on the victim's protected characteristics like race, sex, or religion. But bullying in any form often does pick on the victim's protected characteristics. And so, some states require schools to give extra attention to cyberbullying that mocks, demeans, or intimidates the victim student based on the student's race, sex, religion, disability, or other protected characteristic. New York's anti-cyberbullying law, within the state's Dignity for All Students Act, does precisely that, focusing on anti-discrimination measures. Your student may face greater punishment if including discriminatory statements in the harassing messages. Let our attorneys help you assess and minimize the risk of serious sanctions.
The Impact of High School Cyberbullying Discipline
Do not underestimate the negative impact on your student of school discipline when helping your student defend and defeat school cyberbullying charges. High school discipline, especially suspension and expulsion but even lesser sanctions, can ruin your student's school relationships among peers, teachers, mentors, and administrators. In the worst case, your student could end up at an alternative disciplinary school, also called boot camp or reform school. But nearly any discipline can affect your student's confidence, ambition, and school engagement. Keep your student on track through the traditional high school program. Let us help you obtain your student's best possible outcome to cyberbullying charges.
High School Disciplinary Procedures
State laws and the Constitution generally require public high schools to provide due process before suspending your student long-term or expelling your student from high school. Our attorneys can help you invoke those procedures to be sure that you and your student understand the charges and have a fair opportunity to defend and defeat the charges before an impartial decision-maker. The New Jersey school discipline laws are an example, assuring students of due process before any long-term suspension, expulsion, or other removal of the student from the school. Those New Jersey laws require the school board to notify the student's parents in writing of the details of the bullying charges, including disclosing the evidence of bullying. They also require hearings on contested charges. Your student's school should be providing you and your student with the information and evidence necessary for defending the charges. Let our attorneys help you invoke your student's procedural rights for your student's best outcome.
The Role of the Defense Team in Cyberbullying Charges
Depending on the facts and circumstances of each case, our Student Defense Team can play a critical role in the favorable resolution of cyberbullying charges. We help parents evaluate the charges and the school's cyberbullying evidence. We also help gather exonerating and mitigating evidence. Our computer forensic consultants may be able to show that messages did not originate from your student or your student's devices. We also work to open lines of communication and opportunities for negotiation. Generally, nothing is better than an early voluntary resolution that keeps your student in high school, free of any record of discipline.
Our Student Defense Team can also help you pursue hearings and appeals to exonerate your student or minimize and eliminate crippling discipline. If witnesses are lying or exaggerating, our attorneys may be able to help you challenge their credibility while presenting corrective testimony. If you and your student have already lost your student's hearing, our attorneys may be able to appeal the adverse decision to the school board, a panel the board appoints, or even to the state department of education, depending on your state's procedural rules. Our attorneys have also been able in some cases to negotiate alternative special relief through school general counsel or other oversight channels, even after the student has lost all appeals. Let us review your student's case. Don't give up the fight to preserve your student's education and future.
Student Defense for Cyberbullying Disciplinary Charges
The Lento Law Firm's premier Student Defense Team is available nationwide to represent your high school student facing school disciplinary charges for cyberbullying. We have helped hundreds of students overcome school disciplinary charges of all kinds, including cyberbullying charges. Call 888.535.3686 now to tell us about your student's case, or complete this contact form.
