<p>The best part of this article is the strong response from the girls who are refusing to be victimized. </p>
<p>Younghoss, do you have only sons?</p>
<p>Younghoss, he didn’t do this one time only, he has done it at least for three different years. He was expelled for the same thing his freshman year. He not only posted on Facebook but had the lists printed and distributed. </p>
<pre><code>Especially if any of the girls mentioned are in fact virgins, I would be thinking lawsuit time. Now each state has different rules on whether parents can be sued for a minor’s wrongdoing but I think in almost all states, this case would be one where the parents can be sued. After all, they had plenty of warnings of what their son was up to and nothing was done. These are libelous statements (since truth is a defense to such accusations, it is the only reason I suggest that only parents of virgins be the first people to sue, to protect the girls from nasty cross-examination, not because I think any of these girls had anything like this coming). The posting and distribution of lists is most definitely infliction of emotional distress.
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<p>Slow learner…</p>
<p>I really don’t understand how the number of times someone commits an offense turns it from a tease to bullying. Does only one punch mean it is not a physical assault? That seems like a silly criteria. Plus, he has humiliated and possibly damaged the reputation of 50 girls – so by your criteria, there is at least more than one victim.</p>
<p>By the way, I do not think younghoss has any sons (or any children). Correct me if I am wrong…</p>
<p>high school senior guy here- just saying. not surprising at all. i’ve been a part of a billion groups of boys that have decided to rank the top 10 girls in our senior class that we’d most like to get with. not new parents. ;)</p>
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<p>I hate to break it to you, but this has been happening since before you were even a twinkle in your daddy’s eye. The difference is that kids didn’t publish it on the internet back then.</p>
<p>The reason stuff like this matters is: How far a moral distance IS it between publishing a sexually nasty list of girls on the internet to streaming a recording of your roommate having gay sex? </p>
<p>We all know how that turned out at Rutgers. We all know the girl killed herself in Massachussets.</p>
<p>What I like about THESE girls is that they are fighting back.</p>
<p>Fight back. This new media age makes it all different. If you stand around with a group of guys and say I’d like to …with so and so. Those five guys hear you. If you publish it on the internet? Her entire family, her community, her friends, etc…it becomes an entirely different things.</p>
<p>I sometimes think this generation really believes there is privacy on the internet…I’m glad I’ve spent a lot of time on this with my kids.</p>
<p>OH I certainly was not saying that the number of times is what made it libelous and harassment. What I was saying is whether the parents of the boy are liable for his behavior may be predicated on whether they had any idea he would do such a thing. Clearly they did and therefore can be held liable by a court (civil court since that is where suits for damage are made).</p>
<p>“This is a good example of why parents should not allow their minor children to use FB without parental supervision.” - Good thought. But had these parents been monitoring kiddo’s FB, I’m sure he would have started another secret one.</p>
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And therein lies the difference, indeed.</p>
<p>A group of boys “rates” the girls in their class in a conversation. No one hears it but themselves. Even if they write it down, how many people see the note?</p>
<p>A boy “rates” 50 girls and puts it online. Now thousands - millions - of people can see it, and it will never completely go away - you can’t burn an original when something’s been published online. It’s stored away on a server somewhere. </p>
<p>A rather MASSIVE difference, IMHO.</p>
<p>Younghoss, there is nothing whatsoever that compares this list to a ‘one time tease.’ First, it was not one time as far as the actual article reports. Second, it was publicly distributed. Third, identifying such girls on a list is not remotely equivalent to verbally calling someone a derogatory name (especially not an anonymous entity). Fourth, I am not a lawyer, but neither are you. And really why are you splitting hairs when this obviously comes so close to libel, harassment or sexual harassment, all depending upon where one lives. </p>
<p>The very sick part is, the question one has to ask is why would you be defending it?</p>
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<p>So true! Not to mention, as I asked Bay earlier…so you are the parent who is ‘monitoring’ so how exactly does that work? You are watching your kids’ facebook and when you see him circulate the list online…you accomplish what exactly?</p>
<p>When my oldest daughter was in jr. high facebook was pretty new, and there was also this thing called my space.</p>
<p>A group of girls got up a nasty facebook page about one of the intimidatingly beautiful girls in the school who had developed pretty early. She was quite beautiful, and I’m sure the girls were jealous, or whatnot.</p>
<p>Because I was monitoring, which I really see as teaching, my 12 year old how to responsibly use the internet, I happened to see this new facebook page as she and I were going through her facebook together. (I always did this WITH them when I did this, not behind their backs). I called the mother of the girl who had started the page, and got her to get her daughter to take it down and I notified the parents of the other girls who were involved, as well as the mother of the girl, who I felt needed to know what her daughter was up against, at that point in her life.</p>
<p>My daughter, I’m sure, really wished I hadn’t done that, but at that point, most of the rest of the parents got involved and we had a big group “talk.”</p>
<p>I suppose the mother of the girl who had started it could have acted like it didn’t matter when I called. But, by the time it was everyone, there was some community pressure to at least discuss it. (This was before any of the newer case law on the matter.)</p>
<p>As for high school? I really don’t think a parent of a Junior in high school is in luck. It’s probably a little too late by then for something like that.</p>
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<p>You have him delete it, apologize to everyone affected, punish him and bar him from using FB again, including removing access to any computer, if that is necessary.</p>
<p>Hillary would be proud of those young women. (I’m fairly sure the incident involves her high school alma mater.)</p>
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<p>You can not delete what has already gone out. As a parent, you would be just as responsible for what transpired as the one that wasn’t spying on their kid. I am also curious if you play to observe, control, and edit your minor kid’s FB account when they are at college? </p>
<p>See the key is not 24/7 monitoring and consequences, but simply teaching and instilling values in your kid from the get go so when you are eventually not observing (and surely that comes before legal age!)- such as when they are in the lunch room, at a friend’s house, walking down the street- they are functional, healthy, and safe to be around. At 4 or 10, yes; but at 16, we would hope they have some ability to function without adult surveillance each hour of the day.</p>
<p>I’d be willing to bet that for this kid, the most torturous thing is life is having to say he’s sorry; it completely blows his tough-guy/cool-guy self image. He should visit each girl’s home and sit in her living room with her and her parents and issue an abject apology. Then he should have to apologize at a school assembly. This would give the little bugger many chances to regret what he did. Much more effective than banning him from the internet, which would probably only be a challenge to him.</p>
<p>I’m sorry I’m not a better writer.
More than once I have given my opinion on a one-time tease(that it isn’t bullying) and have also said this specific example was not a one-time tease. Some here don’t see the distinction I have tried to make.
It could be correctly said that I have defended a one-time tease as not being bullying, but anyone that says I am defending this particular repeat offender is quite simply misinformed, misunderstanding me, or is lying.
I ask posters who think I am defending this repeat offender to re-read my posts and please try to see the difference I have tried to explain between a one time tease(that I don’t consider it bullying), and a repeat offender(which I have indicated IS). My post 8 discusses one-time offenders, my post 20 discusses a one-time tease, gives an example of such, and also says that I realize the specific incident in the news article is NOT by a one-time offender. How can I be more clear that I see a difference? Is my writing so poor some here don’t see I have separated the two?</p>
<p>If people here disagree with me and think a one-time tease is bullying, well then we disagree. That’s ok.
But if people think I have given the “OK” to a repeat offender, then they need to re-read my posts.</p>
<p>I misread your post #20. i thought you were equating this type of behavior with teasing a kid for tripping.</p>
<p>Even if this were a “one time thing,” I think the incredible attention that went into posting lists and distributing lists and writing graphically would still qualify as bullying. Good for the girls for not allowing themselves to be bullied by this guy.</p>
<p>“I’m fairly sure the incident involves her high school alma mater.”</p>
<p>No, she’s from Park Ridge. This is in a different suburban region.</p>