The General Assembly failed to pass a bill on school bullying in the summer session, with the Senate unwilling to adopt a definition of bullying built upon a long list of characteristics including “masculinity,” “femininity,” and “sexual orientation.”

While bullying is not new behavior, interest in it has increased dramatically in the past few years in part in response to a number of shootings at high schools across the county in which the assailant had previously been bullied or threatened. The most notorious of the incidents was at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999 when two students killed 12 of their classmates and a teacher before the gunmen committed suicide.

In a presentation to the Bullying Prevention Institute in Hershey, Pa. in October, Susan P. Limber and Marlene Snyder, of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program at Clemson University, outlined the increased interest in bullying in academia, the news media, and public policy circles.

Lexus/Nexus citations of bullying never reached 300 for any year from 1996 to 2000. From 2001 through 2005 though, there were more than 500 citations per year to bullying.

An even more noticeable uptick in interest exists in academic circles. Limber and Snyder noted that PsycInfo database of psychological literature from the 1800s to the present contains very little work on bullying in the early 1990s. By 1998 academic interest had grown somewhat, with just over 50 articles on the subject published during the year. More than 100 articles where published on bullying during 2002. From 2004 through 2006, at least 150 academic articles on the topic were published each year.

State laws on bullying have also grown dramatically, from no states having such a provision in 1999, to 10 states in 2001, 25 states in 2006, and 34 states as of last year. But that doesn’t mean that all these various state provisions are identical. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Service Administration’s pamphlet on state laws relating to bullying highlights the different definitions, approaches, and requirements that different states have taken.

But what’s bullying?

Exactly how North Carolina should define bullying is at the core of the debate over House Bill 1366, which would have required each school district to adopt a policy prohibiting bullying and harassment.

In the version of the bill passed by the House last year, this included:

“Bullying or harassing behavior includes, but is not limited to, acts reasonably perceived as being motivated by any actual or perceived characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, physical appearance, sexual orientation, or mental, physical, or sensory disability, or by association with a person who has or is perceived to have one or more of these characteristics.”

The Senate refused to go along with the long list of characteristics, opting instead for a simpler definition of bullying as that which:

“Creates or is certain to create a hostile environment by substantially interfering with or impairing a student’s educational performance, opportunities, or benefits.”

A conference committee largely adopted the House language, replacing “gender identity or expression” with “masculinity, femininity” while also adding “socio-economic status” and “academic status” to the list of characteristics.

The slight revision in language was not enough to get the Senate to go along. Though being placed on the Senate calendar, the conference report never came up for a vote before the Assembly adjourned for the year.

“I do not support any language in the bill that attempts to provide additional protection for gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation,” said Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham.

Berger noted that many North Carolinians might find the law inappropriate, as it not only expressly approved of these groups but deemed them to be worthy of special protection.

“There’s a certain irony in the idea that members of the General Assembly will endorse legislation that provides special protection for sexual orientation and yet they refuse to move forward on a bill to protect traditional marriage,” Berger said at a press conference before House Bill 1366’s defeat was clear.

“My belief is that any bill to address ‘bullying’ should apply equally to protect all students,” he said.

Attempts to get the Senate to approve a definition of bullying that included characteristics were also undercut by comments made by Howard Lee, chairman of the State Board of Education, to the The News & Observer of Raleigh. “Bullying is bullying,” Lee said to the newspaper. “I don’t care who it’s against and under what circumstances.”

The State Board of Education went through a similar debate four years, with staff suggesting a bullying policy that referenced sexual orientation, political beliefs, age, and socioeconomic status among others as possible reasons for bullying. The board ultimately adopted without mentions characteristics.

House Minority Leader Paul Stam, R-Wake, said at the press conference that the existing state policy on bullying, adopted by the state board, was working well.

Michael Lowrey is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.