April 10, 2011
Having registered for a conference on cyberbullying at Hoftsra Law School this week, it seemed timely to look a bit deeper into the legal issues at stake, and what is on the horizon. Although there is simply not much new on the legal front, the technology front is ever-evolving, and I did learn more about exactly what our middle- and high- school administrators are facing in their schools on a daily basis.
It is to be hoped that so, too, did the American Bar Association (ABA). Having previewed the Cyberbullying Prevention video produced by the ABA this past February (which Emily Bazelon critiques quite thoroughly) one can only suppose that the enormous gap between the bench (court judges) and instances of bullying in 2011 (teens) will only further impede the handing down of relevant, consistent case law. Check out their video and let me know if you agree with Bazelon’s―as well as Ros Wiseman’s views. I can only conclude that the ABA hopes they can get buy-in to their “fantasy narrative” of a blond-haired, blue-eyed HS all-American (Matt Lanter) telling us , in essence, to ‘just say no’ to bullying, which would allow the ABA to build a bridge over the morass of First Amendment freedom of speech issues at stake. Further, it seems to follow that the ABA’s corporate sponsors are also invested in ‘just play nice’ messaging. Why might that be?
Having registered for a conference on cyberbullying at Hoftsra Law School this week, it seemed timely to look a bit deeper into the legal issues at stake, and what is on the horizon. Although there is simply not much new on the legal front, the technology front is ever-evolving, and I did learn more about exactly what our middle- and high- school administrators are facing in their schools on a daily basis.
It is to be hoped that so, too, did the American Bar Association (ABA). Having previewed the Cyberbullying Prevention video produced by the ABA this past February (which Emily Bazelon critiques quite thoroughly) one can only suppose that the enormous gap between the bench (court judges) and instances of bullying in 2011 (teens) will only further impede the handing down of relevant, consistent case law. Check out their video and let me know if you agree with Bazelon’s―as well as Ros Wiseman’s views. I can only conclude that the ABA hopes they can get buy-in to their “fantasy narrative” of a blond-haired, blue-eyed HS all-American (Matt Lanter) telling us , in essence, to ‘just say no’ to bullying, which would allow the ABA to build a bridge over the morass of First Amendment freedom of speech issues at stake. Further, it seems to follow that the ABA’s corporate sponsors are also invested in ‘just play nice’ messaging. Why might that be?
