Mass. enacts tough anti-bullying law

BOSTON, May 4 (UPI) -- Massachusetts' new anti-bullying law is the most far-reaching yet for deterring behavior that has caused children to commit suicide, the law's supporters say.

The bill signed into law Monday is controversial because some say it encroaches on students' First Amendment right to free speech and will almost surely lead to litigation, The Boston Globe reported.

State Rep. Martha Walz, D-Boston, the bill's primary sponsor, said it gained urgency after the January suicide of Phoebe Prince, 15, of South Hadley.

The Massachusetts law is different from other states' anti-bullying laws because it requires all students from kindergarten through 12th grade to participate every year in an anti-bullying curriculum, Walz said.

"The way we're going to address the bullying problem is to fundamentally change the school culture. (We will) educate the students from a very early age about how to interact with one another, how to deal with conflict, and how to help classmates when they are being treated inappropriately," Walz said.

"The people who pass these laws want to make everything better ... . They want to protect children ... . But that doesn't mean it's constitutional," said Evan S. Cohen, a Los Angeles lawyer who in November won a federal lawsuit on behalf of his daughter. The girl was suspended from her Beverly Hills middle school for posting a YouTube video she made of her friends making crass remarks about a classmate.

"The court cannot uphold school discipline of student speech simply because young persons are unpredictable or immature, or because, in general, teenagers are emotionally fragile and may often fight over hurtful comments," the judge in Cohen's case wrote in his opinion.