Michigan has finally accepted they’re relatively late to the anti-bullying legislature party and are looking to make amends for not keeping up with the times.

Hooray. Thanks to Senate Bill 137, school bullies everywhere will now be punished as criminals for picking on Sue for her life style choice or Billy for being a puny wimp.

Except SB137, which was approved Nov. 2 by a 26-11 party-line vote, received statewide praise in the amount of miscellaneous cricket chirping and inaudible white noise.

Why?

Because the language of the legislature includes a notable exemption that kind-of allows a bully to go ahead and call Billy a puny whimp – if they commit the act in the name of whatever higher power he/she believes in.

The proposed Senate bill states its requirement “does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil’s parent or guardian.”

So, let’s say I time travelled back to elementary school during lunch time and this law was signed in as-is. If I decided to muscle a couple quarters off the fifth-grade weakling so I could buy a carton of chocolate milk, I’d be in the clear if I did it while holding a bible, recited a religious verse; or I don’t know, maybe just shouted at the top of my lungs “Praise him!” as said weakling relinquished his fifty cents.

Um, what?

Sadly, the bill was given a nickname in honor of Matt Epling, a boy from East Lansing who killed himself in 2002 for being bullied.

Epling’s father, who’s been working with the folks in Lansing to come up with effective anti-bullying legislature since his son’s tragic death, told the Detroit Free Press “Matt’s Safe School Law” was: “Unconscionable. This is government-sanctioned bigotry.”

Luckily, members of the House of Representatives have spoken out against the hair-raising last-minute addition implying that it won’t make the final cut when all is said and done.

But when this nonsensical debate over the Bullies’ Religious Exemption reaches an end and the law moves forward, just how effective will it be?

Leading by example

New Jersey improved their initial 2002 anti-bullying law which is now billed as the ‘toughest’ in the country. After taking a year to hammer out the details, the ‘Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights’ went into effect Sept. 1 in response to a Rutgers student who committed suicide after his roommates streamed a romantic encounter on the Internet between him and another man.

The law requires administrators to investigate bullying incidents, no matter how extreme, and if they failed to do so could result in disciplinary action. This included any activity they catch wind of happening off-school premises. School officials were also required to undergo new training processes.

Suicide has been the overwhelming catalyst for the cause of enacting such laws. But, in more than a decade since the first anti-bullying legislature in the country was passed, the level of progress made is debatable.

“There have been anti-bullying programs that have shown to be effective in elementary school, in particular, somewhat in middle school, and then really not so much in high school yet,” said Emily Bazelon from Slate Magazine in an interview two months ago on NPR. “(S)o part of this is that there’s still a nut to be cracked in figuring out what the best way is to deal with this problem in school.”

Bazelon cited the reasoning for less effectiveness in high school and beyond as that the older people get, the less prone they are to listen to what adults are trying to tell them.

Really now? No way!

What anti-bullying laws merely do is enable a need to recognize situations where an individual is being attacked and then figure how to attribute a punishment for their perpetrators action.

But, if nothing is done to offer help or assistance to the individual on the receiving end, what sometimes results – and will continue to – is unfortunate circumstances like suicide. There needs to be a defined focus on that aspect in particular or these laws will continue to produce underwhelming results.

A study conducted this year in the Issues in Mental Health Nursing journal led by Geoffrey D. Cooper show that 77 percent of public schools have suicide prevention programs. While the programs have proved effectiveness, the study showed to produce positive results there need to be similar measures implemented in public schools like what New Jersey’s done. The reason being, it explained, was that students are more likely to report when they are bullied if the school staff is perceived as supportive.

Michigan’s potential law falls short by about a million miles if comparing it to the bar New Jersey has set. SB137 includes practically none of the requirements laid out in the ‘Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights.’ There’s no requirement for staff training, punishment against school officials for failure to take action, or forcing school districts to report what they did to handle bullying incidents.

The fact is bullying is not going to simply disappear. Period. While the law could be argued as a step in the right direction per say, it leaves out an extraordinary amount of factors that would benefit the intention of introducing anti-bullying legislature in the first place.

Even worse, why are our legislators bickering publically about the proposed law in the works? Besides the pitfall that the language is lacking necessary protocol for success, each party has accused the other of ulterior motives for what they want to see come of it. What type of message does that send to younger kids in school its intended for? Attacking each other over on how to handle bullying. Talk about definite undertones of irony.

Michigan is one of only three states without any law geared toward preventing bullying. The way our government is handling it, they might as well continue with the lagging track record and let the void remain until they decide to wise up.