Senator Justus, representing the thought police?

I understand the introduction of "anti-bullying" laws or the intentions of those that sponsor such legislation. They want to protect the children, or specific identity groups, but the reality is that "anti-bullying" legislation is unnecessary and quite probably unconstitutional as it is currently written as one cannot determine the motivation of behaviors.

All schools already have policies and procedures in place to address harassment, abuse, behavioral misconduct, intimidation, and other associated disorderly conduct. If the behavior goes beyond merely disrupting and crosses the line into assault, that is also currently addresses by all schools and is illegal. "Anti-bullying" legislation does nothing more than attract attention to elected officials proposing it but does nothing to improve the safety of our children in schools.

We do not need and cannot legislate away an undefined thought crime of "bullying," regardless of whom we are trying to protect. We cannot place "unfunded mandates" on schools to implement "anti-bullying" policies.

The focus should be on the disruptive and/or illegal behavior, or the commission of an illegal act, not the perceived underlying motivation of an illegal act. Consider this, if a child brings a weapon into a school to do harm to his/her fellow students, is it even more unacceptable if they are "bullying" someone or responding to "bullying?" No--because attempted assault and bringing a weapon onto school grounds is already illegal...

For more info, see the School Security dot org.