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Friday, March 29, 2024

It has been nearly a year since Tyler Clementi, former Rutgers student, committed suicide after his roommate streamed an intimate video of Clementi and another man. I remember when I first read about the tragedy in the news. I didn't understand - how did this happen? What caused Clementi so much pain that he had to end his life?

The reason that Clementi's suicide elicited so much national attention not only stems from the fact that it delineated a culture of intolerance but also because it gave rise to a new problem in our society: the danger of cyberbullying.

Since the evolution of the Internet in the 1990s, one of the most apparent outcomes has been the simple accessibility to cyber contact in lieu of human contact.

However, with the invention of any form of technology, there are always some issues that are unforeseen and unthinkable. As Clementi's suicide so clearly demonstrates, the Internet is a smooth and easy passage into the dark world of cyberbullying.

Ultimately, cyberbullying is not about intolerance toward homosexuals. In essence, we are free to feel what we want about others. Whether you choose to accept the way someone expresses himself or not, there are always better ways to define your beliefs than to attack and judge.

Fortunately, New Jersey has made commendable efforts to challenge bullies in the future. By enacting the "Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights," the state has taken a national lead in deterring bullying within public schools. While the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights has grand intentions and is extremely purposeful with its agenda, it fails to specifically address cyber crimes, which are often more harmful than your average hate crime. In fact, according to the Anti-Defamation League, "although 44 states have bullying statutes, fewer than half offer guidance about whether schools may intervene in bullying involving ‘electronic communication.'"

New Jersey's initiative in making this daring legislative reform is nonetheless admirable. But we can't stop here. Treating cyberbullying as a rare and unique crime is a flawed approach, and we must understand that it happens regularly.

Recently, a 15-year-old freshman high school student, Phoebe Prince, committed suicide because of prolonged cyberbullying from a group of girls who harassed her for dating an older football player. Beleaguered by hateful text messages and taunting in the form of Facebook posts, Prince could only endure so much. Students would scream at her from one side of the library, calling her derogatory names. One girl went so far as to throw a drink at her from a car while driving away laughing. While some bullies are too young to understand the repercussions of their actions, Phoebe's harassers were 17- and 18-year-old students. They have no excuse. What's worse is that Prince was a recent Irish immigrant.

Why couldn't Prince's death have been prevented? Why aren't Prince's bullies being severely punished for their unforgiving actions? Why didn't the school feel compelled to intervene? The simple answer is that there is no imposed law.

Are we going to wait for another young person to end his or her life just because of a lack of enforcement?

It is time we realize that cyberbullying is becoming a fatal crime. Laws must be created, publicized and enforced.

Would this be a violation of our first-amendment rights? Maybe in a small, convoluted way. But our forefathers did not write the Constitution to invite heinous actions into our society.

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Akansha Mishra is a pre-law junior at UF. Her column appears on Fridays.

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