Bullying and Harassment in Colleges:
One of the major reasons why children are sent to school or colleges by their parents is to learn. However, many college campuses have become breeding grounds for bullying and harassment that affects millions of students. While the extent of bullying and harassment in colleges is still unclear, such incidents take place on the basis of sexual orientation, religion, race, gender identity, and sex (Holt, 2010). The bullying and harassment in college campuses tend to occur through email, on the Internet, and face-to-face.
As the practice has become widespread across college campuses, memories of school bullying haunt people for several years. Actually, bullied students are usually habituated to defending themselves from cruel actions to an extent that they ultimately become bullies themselves. Moreover, unsupportive teachers also contribute to the spread of bullying and development of new bullies. For instance, many victims of bullying and school bullies have stated that the college administration did not protect them from bullies.
School administrators have continued to demonstrate lack of caring to stop bullying though they have enough powers to stop it. Furthermore, many colleges are not strict enough and do not have anti-bullying or anti-harassment policies (Billitteri, 2010). Therefore, the victims of these actions are left to themselves to try and figure out what they could do to stop it. As a result, the heightened awareness of bullying and harassment in colleges is one of the latest instances of moral panic.
Since school administrators have the powers to stop bullying and harassment, colleges should be required to prohibit the practice through strict rule and regulations. The need to require colleges to prohibit bullying and harassment is attributed to various factors including the fact that the cruel acts have significant impacts on children's learning processes and experiences. Victims of the cruel acts tend to experience feelings of depression, isolation, and lack of care, especially from the school administrators.
Secondly, colleges should be required to prohibit these cruel acts because of the devastating impacts and effects it has on students. First, bullying and harassment can result in depression and even suicide by victims. For instance, a freshman at Rutgers committed suicide in 2010 after some of his fellow students purportedly used a webcam to secretly observe him in a sexual encounter with another student (Holt, 2010). This incident is an example of a tragedy that calls for empathy, compassion, and human dignity through prohibiting bullying and harassment in colleges. The establishment of rules and regulations to prohibit bullying and harassment in colleges would also help in lessening the spread of the practice across campuses. As previously mentioned, victims of these cruel acts eventually become bullies in attempts to protect themselves and revenge their experiences. Therefore, prohibiting the practice will be essential in curbing its spread since there will be lesser victims and minimal chance for emergence of new bullies within the college campus.
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