School lies about harassment that caused suicides

In 2007, a high school student in Mentor, Ohio, committed suicide because of a pattern of harassment at school. The school knew about the harassment - but chose not to do anything about it. In fact, much of the harassment took place right in front of the teachers (much like at Brossart).

Now his parents are suing. They aren't seeking monetary damages, but the suit attempts to force the school to acknowledge serial bullying and take steps to prevent it.

It turns out that this wasn't the only harassment-induced suicide in that class in 2007. That same year, 3 other students in the very same class also took their own lives as a result of school harassment.

In addition, a schoolmate of the 4 suicide victims threatened to kill himself. His father said, "What it boils down to is, the football players, cheerleaders, and kids with money have a different set of rules than everybody else."

This is the exact same very thing I've been saying for 20 years. Some kids don't have to follow the rules like everyone else. Anyone who doesn't have their head up their ass can see this.

Despite this, an official with the Mentor school system denied the school had any harassment problem at all. He said the suicides had nothing to do with harassment. But that is an out-and-out lie.

Furthermore, school officials had urged students not to cooperate with the police investigation into the suicides.

If a poor inner-city school system has an attendance rate of less than 95%, the freeposphere goes bonkers and demands the state take over the school system. And this has happened before in Ohio. But a wealthy suburban district like Mentor has far worse problems, and nobody is held accountable.

School officials and harassers in this case need to be prosecuted for murder. And the state needs to step up its oversight over the Mentor schools.

There's no bully worse than a privileged suburban bully. They've had everything handed to them their whole lives yet have no appreciation for it. And they're the corrupt politicians and corporate tyrants of tomorrow.

Once they get past their mid-teens, these Hitler Youth cannot be rehabilitated. At minimum, they shouldn't be allowed to attend regular schools, should be barred for life from employment that involves interaction with young people, and should lose their driver's license.

If the family that filed the lawsuit was seeking monetary damages, I'd have no problem awarding them everything the school is worth.

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3812739;
http://content.usatoday.net/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=cincinnati&sParam=30480001.story)