Abstract
The focus of this Article is to critique anti-bullying laws and the larger framework of school safety in which these laws sit. Irrespective of the various formulations of these laws (as bullying, as anti-harassment, or as anti-harassment-plus), the ways in which school personnel interpret, selectively apply, ignore, or reinvent them has even greater consequences for the children than the mere fact that these topics have been addressed by state legislatures.
There are two broad consequences of these anti-bullying laws. The first is to further de-gender school safety by the use of the gender-neutral term, bullying. While sometimes employing psychotherapeutic language (as bullying is a term that has been transplanted from thirty years in the psychological literature), anti-bullying legislation may serve to undermine the legal rights and protections offered by anti-harassment laws. A second consequence is to shift the discussion of school safety away from a larger civil rights framework (racial and sexual harassment) to one that focuses on, pathologizes, and in some cases, demonizes individual behavior—a/k/a the bully.
How to Cite
45 Ariz. L. Rev. 783 (2003)
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