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Jewish Groups Split on School Bullying

posted on June 7, 2012

At The Jewish Daily Forward, Naomi Zeveloff writes about an emerging split between two of America’s leading Jewish advocacy groups over how public schools should draw the line between what constitutes bullying and freedom of religious expression. Marc Stern, the American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) general counsel, argues that “speech is presumably protected unless school officials can show that it is disruptive or that it damages or infringes on the rights of others.” Stern’s comments follow the publication of a new report, co-produced by the AJC, intended to help schools differentiate between harassment and free speech. “The Anti-Defamation League countered by slamming the AJC report,” writes Zeveloff, “noting that schools should first and foremost focus on preventing bullying, which it says almost always involves physical or verbal targeting of vulnerable students.”

Read at The Jewish Daily Forward