I have written about the ongoing bullying problem in the nearby York County, Virginia, school division in the aftermath of the Memorial Day weekend suicide of 16 year Christian Taylor last year here and here. One of the problems is the apparent total indifference to well being of all students in the ranks of the school administration. The second and even larger problem is that Virginia's laws more or less absolve both the bullies persecuting other students and the indifferent and negligent school administrators. Only actual physical assault or utterly gross negligence will open the threshold for accountability of the bully and school administrators, respectively.
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But back to Christian's family eight months after his death. Given Christian's suicide, one would think that the York County schools would go out of their way to protect his surviving siblings from harassment and bullying. But sadly, such is not the case as is evidenced by this story on WVEC-TV 13 by a reporter friend, David Ham ( a print version of the story can be found here):
As a parent, the school division's obscene disregard for Christian's siblings - and I suspect many other students as well - makes me furious. EVERY child deserves to be able to go to school without harassment be they gay, lesbian, black white, Hispanic, Christian, Muslim or Hindu, etc. Is this simple right too much to ask for? I hope readers will widely disseminate this story and force York County to clean up its act if not for the right reason only so as to stop the negative publicity.
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