By Amy Benfer

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The article "Cyber slammed" was both thought-provoking and upsetting. Almost nothing was said about the parents in these cases (except the fact that a mother was slightly acid-burned -- I assume she recovered without saying a word).

When I was a kid I made an anonymous phone call to let a little girl in our class know exactly what I felt about her. Well, my grandma was right there and when she realized what I was doing, I caught it. I remember not really understanding how mean it was to do such a thing until she said something about it -- then I was so ashamed I cannot remember doing anything like that again.

Maybe I'm behind the times, but the focus of this article seems a little misplaced. It may be true that kids are suing schools, administrators and other kids to defend their right to free speech, and that school officials are being forced to act very cautiously regarding these issues. However, I cannot really imagine kids suing anyone without the help of their parents, both financially and legally.

Who are these parents who allow their kids to treat other human beings any way they want to? Who are these parents who sue administrators before they talk to their kids about their responsibilities towards their peers? Why don't school officials call parents first? Or maybe they do and that's just not what this story was about.

-- Alice Moore

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After thoroughly reading the article about students bullying each other using Internet message boards as a medium for communication, I was helped to reach several conclusions, both about schools, and about families.

Nobody ever suspended the proverbial popular cheerleader for spreading nasty rumors about the isolated nerd girl that nobody liked. This is because suing someone simply for stating their opinion, whether true or not, is both frivolous and wrong. Whether or not the statements are horribly cruel, and whether or not other people believe them and spread them around, there eventually comes a point in time when the nerd girl has to finally reach the conclusion that the other students are wrong for doing that, and that they're only making themselves look crueler in the eyes of their peers.

I may be a little jaded, since I speak from personal experience when I say this, but eventually, the students will grow bored and do something else, and go back to ignoring the nerd girl. It may hurt, but in the end, it helps the nerd girl distinguish who her true friends are. That's the way classroom politics goes.

As for parent and teacher intervention, how will students learn to cope with criticism and unfounded rumors in the real world, if all they have to do is cry to their parents and pull the lawsuit card? The only thing lawsuit threats do is teach the students that it's okay to threaten someone with a lawsuit if they say something that you don't like or agree with. And, frankly, I see enough of that on the Internet today, without needing more encouragement of it from overzealous parents.

Don't misunderstand me. There is always a point when bullying or rumors go too far, and I'm in full support of schools intervening on students' behalf. I just don't think that suspensions without hearings is the best solution to the problem, since that seems to be the quickest way to a courtroom battleground. Conferences are much more discreet, but I myself am not aware of any prior action taken on any school's behalf before the incidents in question took place. Suspensions are not the answer, and will do nothing but inflame the problem, both for the student, and for the school itself.

Schools need to grow up and not mention Columbine for every single student dispute that ever happens. This means you, Mr. Superintendent.

These parents need to grow up and learn to stop acting like children, crying to their lawyers every time someone does something or says something that they don't like. When a bottle of acid is being thrown in your face, it's one thing, but when your daughter's name is written on a bathroom wall in an illicit way, you don't hire a handwriting expert and have the perpetrator arrested for defamatory comments.

-- Christina Rose

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