Cyberbullying: Who's Really Responsible, Parents or Administrators?

“There was a time when to misbehave in school you had to be in school. These days technology makes it possible for youth to reach through both space and time to harass or bully classmates, regardless of physical location.”

Larry Magid, When Schools Can Discipline Off-Campus Behavior, SafeKids.com.

Bullying has fundamentally changed in the digital age. Before social media, bullying ended when the school day ended. Today, however, “cyberbullying allows bullies to expand the harassment beyond school grounds and the regular school day, to a 24 hour boundless threat of harassment, thereby maximizing control, intimidation, and harm to the victim. For this reason, cyber-bullying can be far more psychologically damaging to the victim than in-school bullying alone.” John Dayton, Education Law 166-168 (Wisdom Builders Press 2012).

Parents often assume that administrators address cyberbullying which takes place outside of school or camp, while administrators often assume parents handle these off-campus challenges. Of course, administrators discipline kids for misconduct that occurs on campus, when kids are in the care of a school or camp and the administrators are responsible for kids' well-being. But what happens when cyberbullying occurs off campus? Is it an issue for administrators, parents, or police?

Courts hold that schools can discipline students for off-campus misbehavior when it clearly impacts students' on-campus experience. See id. at 167. For example, in the 1995 case Donavan v. Ritchie, the First Circuit upheld a school’s punishment of a student who created a paper “Shit List," which included names of 140 students along with crude comments about their appearances, social skills, and other attributes. 68 F.3d 14 (1st Cir. 1995). Although created off-campus, the document caused disruptions at school and administrators were right to react. Id.

Donavan’s reasoning certainly applies to digital bullying. As one article explains, “[A] group of kids could each be sitting in their own homes on a Saturday night, using their computers to . . . demean, harass, defame, or impersonate a fellow student. Come Monday, that online activity could have a very real impact on campus. Not only might fellow students have seen it prior to arriving at school, they might also access that page at school on school computers or their own mobile phones. It could have a negative impact on the victim(s) or even cause a disruption school-wide.” Magid, supra.

Courts hold that administrators have an obligation to react in these situations. “In extreme, persistent, and harmful cases of bullying and harassment, when school officials knew or should have known about the abuse, courts have recognized a duty to take reasonable actions to protect the students in their care.” See Dayton, supra.

Likewise, individual states are increasingly enacting statutes to prohibit bullying in all its forms. Many of these statutes affirmatively require school officials to protect children from digital bullying, and the statutes expose administrators to lawsuits for failing to act. Id.

While they may require action, most states don’t mandate specific consequences for kids who engage in bullying, which leaves latitude for administrators to react in a way they feel is most appropriate under the circumstances. See stopbullying.gov/laws. Under the New York anti-bullying law, for example, schools are required “to take prompt actions reasonably calculated to end the harassment, bullying or discrimination, eliminate any hostile environment, create a more positive school culture and climate, prevent recurrence of the behavior, and ensure the safety of the student or students against whom such harassment, bullying or discrimination was directed.” stopbullying.gov/laws/new-york. Administrators can decide how to best achieve those goals based on the details of the situation.

The bottom line is that school and camp administrators can’t turn a blind eye to cyberbullying that happens off campus. They should take reasonable steps to protect victims and engage parents as partners in finding appropriate solutions.