Intro:

I started and run a forum called Responsible Public Debate at the local Ethical Society in St. Louis, MO.  I invite various speakers to present their position in contrast to another.  They give their   presentation, respond to each other's points, and then we take audience questions.  Two weeks later after some fact checking, video uploading, and some argument mapping we meet again to build off of the cases laid out in the debate, evaluate the outcomes of the fact checking, and catch all those loose ends that typically tend to get lost when debates come and go.  All in all, it can be a very enriched experience tackling an issue for those who participate.  This is an exercise in civility and responsible epistemology and a learning experience on just how to make this kind of thing happen.  Ideally, I'd like to see RPD groups (or something like them) pop up all over the country at a grass roots level and become an expected staple of a healthy democratic society.  I'm also sure to promote any other forums in the area and abroad that embody similar values and give shout outs to instances of healthy cross-ideological conversations that happen in our media. 

The argument map (click to rebiggen):

The issue is about including a clause in anti-bullying legislation that goes out of its way to define specific categories of victim groups.  The clause reads:

Does this help or hinder?

My answer:  It probably helps. 

Eleven states that have enumeration in their laws have fewer reported cases of bullying.  As even the research points out, correlation is not causation, but the logic behind why enumeration helps seems more solid than the logic against it.  Enumeration empowers teachers to be able to speak up and say that something like "being gay" is okay in some authoritative sense where otherwise they might fear losing their job for being some gay activist.  It is legal in Missouri to fire someone for being gay or to kick them out of their apartment and so have a specific legal clause that ensures this category is protected means that teachers can freely do their job.  It also enables students who have a minority status to feel more secure when perhaps the local prejudices of the school they attend might otherwise seem set against them by default.  Even if more tolerant and understanding school districts happen to be the ones most likely to adopt enumerated policies (in other words, the enumeration didn't exactly cause the benefit), this doesn't seem like an argument against the positive case for enumeration.  Its seems more like an argument for a change in attitude on behalf of the states and school boards to get in step with the idea behind the legislation which would further contribute to that end. 

I await to see the evidence that shows that enumeration somehow lop-sides the focus on protecting certain kinds of victims over others that have not been spelled out.  It is not like we are introducing teachers to the concepts of ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.  They were there all along and I don't think calling attention to them is somehow mental sabotage or blinders towards other more vague kinds of bullying as much as it is legal structure to protect all parties involved, enabling them to do what should be done.  Most of us have probably been bullied at some point in the past as one of our debaters pointed out (I think I can count the number of times on one hand for me), but some of us were bullied much more frequently than others and for basically the same set of obvious reasons.  Some of the broadest sides of the barn need to be spelled out and the Safe Schools Act can simply add an open-ended clause in addition.  The punishments for bullying, as I understand it, are no more harsh for any other kind, so this doesn't appear to be a "thought crimes" issue.  Certainly more study could be done on the issue to tease out every angle which could be addressed to further inhibit bullying in schools. 

I'd like to again thank Kerry Messer from the Missouri Family Network and Morgan Keenan from PROMO for participating in our forum.  The video of their debate can be found here.

Ben