Bullying, It Goes Further Than Grade School

When you think of bullying, usually the first thing to come to mind is one kid picking on another kid on the playground; but in reality, it goes much deeper than that. The adjustments to college life are hard enough for students but to harp on someone for their differences and insecurities and point them out as the center of attention doesn’t help with such a huge milestone in their lives. Studies show that the majority of occurrences of bullying in college are border line hate crimes, such as anti-gay incidents, separations of different race and body types, sexual harassments or initiatory hazing procedures.

According to Bullysolutions.com, the majority of college “bullies” are male students who pick on both male and female students, while a smaller percentage of female students normally only pick on other female students. The main example of the bullying problem within the student population relates to significant accounts of hazing within Greek organizations or diverse sport teams. They may think of this traditional act as a rite of passage for their initiatory process, but within the Education Code Sections 32050 and 32051 of California State University of Monterey Bay’s, (CSUMB), bylaws: “’hazing’ includes any method or initiation or pre-initiation into a student organization, or any pastime or amusement engaged in with respect to such an organization which causes, or is likely to cause, bodily danger, physical harm, or personal degradation or disgrace resulting in physical or mental harm, to any student or other person attending any school, community college, college, university or other educational institution in this state; but the term “hazing” does not include customary athletic events or other similar contests or competitions.”

With multiple accounts of bullying occurring across the nation, people must wonder why people become bullies. According to Bullystatistics.org, there are many reasons why people walk down the path of bullying. Reasons for bullying can vary from cultural differences, institutional beliefs, social issues, family problems, having power over someone else, provocative or “easy” victims, or a mental payback from a time where the bully was once bullied. With a bully’s history of being bullied, they may have also suffered from “social rejection” where they were, unfortunately, “never chosen for kickball,” so to speak.

A recent occurrence of hazing has taken the life of a marching band member, Robert Champion, at Florida A&M University, (FAMU) who was found in a non-respondent state in front of the band’s bus after a rival team loss on November 19, 2011. Four other band members were dismissed by the University due to their role in Champion’s death. The band director, Julian White, was also fired from the university. Even though documents say that he has sent the university letters regarding the hazing problem while the University President, James Ammons, maintains that he never received any letters from White regarding the issue.

Many groups and individuals are stepping out to show the world that bullying is never the answer and that it is an issue that needs to be put to an end. One popular group is made up of the people of the Stand for the Silent program. According to StandfortheSilent.org, the program “addresses the issue of school bullying with an engaging, factual, and emotional methodology. Through the efforts of Ty’s father, Kirk Smalley, and SFTS director, Francie Moss, students are shown first-hand the life and death consequences of bullying.” They pledge to respect others and lift up those have become a victim to the dangers of being bullied. With groups like these, and popular individuals speaking out against bullying, maybe one day this will no longer be a problem and no one will have to live in silence because they are too afraid to speak up for their own lives.