Is Bullying a Real Problem?

Not too far from where I grew up there have been several recent violent incidents at a local high school. A young girl, 15 or 16, was attacked by a small group of students. They called her the N word, they stole her backpack, robbed her, and they dragged her by her hair. She had chunks missing from her scalp, it was bad. This girl has been harassed like this a few times in school but to my knowledge all of these students are still at the high school. The girl however, is afraid, and hasn’t returned to school since. This entire situation has sparked a conversation in the community about if it’s fair to expel students or not. People are arguing that the young girl has a right to safety and therefore these other kids have got to go. Other people are arguing that by expelling these students we are denying them their right to an education. They say if we expel them they will likely not graduate and will statistically go on to commit more, and increasingly worse, crimes.

I’m genuinely quite surprised that there’s such a large number of people saying the kids who committed the attack shouldn’t be expelled. I view this particular incident as a hate crime as it was racially motivated. The incident reminded me of another that happened several years earlier. A girl who was consistently bullied by a group of students was tricked into meeting up with them one night and they beat her to death. Another young girl who I actually went to school with drank bleach and killed herself in 9th grade after years of physical and verbal bullying.

Is bullying a problem where you’re from? If it is do you have ideas about how the problem should be addressed? Or do you think bullying is a normal right of passage kids have to go through?