Alleged Teen Bullies Charged After Classmate's Suicide

After 15-year-old Phoebe Prince hanged herself at her parents' home in January, questions surfaced about the degree to which she had been bullied and harassed by other teens. Now, two boys and four girls from her school face a mix of charges including statutory rape and stalking. Three younger girls are being charged in juvenile court.

The charges are among the most extreme ever brought in a bullying case, and some experts have called the case a "watershed" moment for American schools.

School officials blamed for inaction

	Fifteen-year-old Phoebe Prince was teased for dating a popular boy and for having emigrated to the U.S. from Ireland.

According to Prince's family and the Northwestern district attorney, the teasing began shortly after they moved to Massachusetts from a small town in Ireland and Prince began classes at South Hadley High School. Many of the taunts were related to the fact that Prince briefly dated a popular boy, and others were linked to her Irish origins. Some students reportedly sent her threatening text messages and called her names like "Irish slut."

On the day she died, Prince was allegedly abused in the school library and the lunchroom, and someone threw a canned drink at her on her way home. Her sister found her at the family's apartment at 4:30 p.m., hanging from a stairwell.

While most of the abuse occurred during school hours, some students also attacked her online through social networking sites.

District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel, who filed the charges against the nine teens, says school officials failed to stop the bullying even though they knew about it for months. Prince's mother twice complained to school staff about her daughter's teasing, and prosecutors claim the school did not take appropriate action.

Gus Sayer, superintendent of South Hadley Public Schools, and other school officials say the bullying was not clear to them until about a week before Prince committed suicide. Sayer says the responsible students were disciplined, and the school also insists there is no proof that Prince killed herself because she was bullied.

Incident is not isolated

	According to USA Today, surveys show that one-third of Americans are bullies or bullied — or both — at some point during school.

Several bullying incidents have attracted national attention recently, including the 2009 suicide of 11-year-old Carl Walker-Hoover of Springfield, Mass. Walker-Hoover hanged himself after enduring daily anti-gay slurs. He did not identify as gay. Three other known middle school student suicides occurred in 2009 in Illinois, all linked to bullying.

In a recent New York court decision, a gay teenager won $50,000 in a law suit against his school after it was ruled staff members failed to protect him against harassment related to his sexual orientation. In Michigan, another student sued his school district and won $800,000 when the court decided the school had not done enough to stop bullying and sexual harassment.

At a South Philadelphia high school, Asian students claim they have faced constant bullying unaddressed by school officials. In response, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed an official complaint with the U.S. Justice Department in January.

Cases bring attention to state bullying laws

	41 U.S. states currently have anti-bullying laws on the books.

Such extreme and frequent bullying cases have prompted community members, school officials and state legislators around the country to lobby for stricter anti-bullying laws. Forty-one states currently have varying degrees of anti-bullying legislation in place; the states with no such laws are Hawaii, Michigan, Montana, Missouri, North Dakota, New York, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Massachusetts.

Due at least in part to Prince's story, Massachusetts is poised to pass an anti-bullying law that some watchdog groups say could become the nation's strongest. While the Massachusetts law wouldn't make bullying a criminal offense, it would require all schools to have an anti-bullying curriculum and train teachers and staff to respond to bullying. The law would also require witnesses to report criminal bullying to law enforcement officials.

The Massachusetts House and Senate have each passed a unique version of the anti-bullying bill, and now the two bills must be combined through the reconciliation process. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has promised to sign the law.