After the massacre at Columbine High School five years ago, lawmakers and school boards across the land scrambled to prevent similar atrocities. In California, that led to Assembly Bill 537, the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000. Its purpose was to assure all students "the inalienable right to attend campuses that are safe, secure, and peaceful." Unfortunately, according to Kay Hymowitz of the Manhattan Institute, the law is grounded in "a serious misunderstanding about how to improve school discipline" that focuses more on trendy notions of protecting marginalized groups than on the real causes of school violence. Case in point: The state may withhold millions of dollars from Westminster Schools in Orange County this year because, writes Hymowitz, "three board members voted to reject the state's wording in an anti-discrimination policy designed to protect transgendered students (all .001 percent of them)." The problem with this, Hymowitz says, is that "there is little evidence linking school violence . . . with racism, sexism, and homophobia." The truth is that "laws, bureaucrats and legalistic, politically correct policies imposed from the top down can't stop harassment and violence in the schools of Orange County or elsewhere." Only committed educators, with the help of parents, administrators, and a sound, consistent discipline policy can do that.
"Silly laws are no way to fight bullying," by Kay Hymowitz, Los Angeles Times, April 18, 2004