An orange wave confronts bullying in Bridgeport
By Linda Conner Lambeck
BRIDGEPORT — The sea of orange rippling through the city on Wednesday was impressive, but not as much as the stream of facts fifth-graders at Discovery Magnet School could spout.
“More than 160,000 high school students (nationwide) skip school ever day because of bullying,” Jorja Appleby said of his online research.
Kids who are bullied can suffer from depression and anxiety, added classmate John Carlos Cruz.
“It is not acceptable,” Sophia Dejusti, 10, declared flatly.
Throughout Discovery Magnet and the rest of the school district, Wednesday was Unity Day. It was a chance not only to see who could pull off vibrant orange shirts, leggings and hair ties best, but also to focus on a topic many say goes unreported among Bridgeport’s 21,000 public school students.
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A Majority of Teens Have Experienced Some Form of Cyberbullying (Pew Research)
BY MONICA ANDERSON
Name-calling and rumor-spreading have long been an unpleasant and challenging aspect of adolescent life. But the proliferation of smartphones and the rise of social media has transformed where, when and how bullying takes place. A new Pew Research Center survey finds that 59% of U.S. teens have personally experienced at least one of six types of abusive online behaviors.1
The most common type of harassment youth encounter online is name-calling. Some 42% of teens say they have been called offensive names online or via their cellphone. Additionally, about a third (32%) of teens say someone has spread false rumors about them on the internet, while smaller shares have had someone other than a parent constantly ask where they are, who they’re with or what they’re doing (21%) or have been the target of physical threats online (16%).
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Leading cancer-research charity takes tough stance on bullying
by Holly Else
One of the world’s biggest funders of cancer research has launched an anti-bullying policy that could lead to the withdrawal of funding from scientists whose institutions uphold allegations made against them.
The policy, announced by Cancer Research UK (CRUK), makes the charity the second major UK research funder to introduce anti-bullying and anti-harassment rules. Biomedical charity the Wellcome Trust, in London, introduced similar a policy in June.
CRUK is the largest independent funder of cancer research in Europe, and spent more than £400 million (US$519 million) on cancer research in 2017–18. Much of its funding comes from donations.
The policy, which came into effect on 18 October, applies to all current grant holders and collaborators, students and CRUK funding-committee and panel members, as well as to speakers at research events hosted by the charity.