Aren’t they responsible for killing Megan?
Here’s a horrible story about cyberbullying that I stumbled across today. As educators we deal with bullying and the rise of cyber-bullying frequently, but this is just a terrible story and got me looking at the issue in a different way.
This story is about a 13 year-old girl who killed herself subsequent to being bullied on a social networking site. While this alone is tragic, what shocks me even more about this story is the fact that it was ADULTS that did the bullying - the parents of a friend of the girl who committed suicide. The adults were apparently doing this as a ‘joke’ or as a way to ‘get back’ at the girl who had just severed the friendship with their daughter.
a fictitious 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans, who contacted Megan on MySpace.com.
Their communication lasted six weeks, according to the Journal article, and ended with a string of disturbing messages from Josh and postings that read Megan was “fat” and “a slut.”
The story reported Ron Meier, Megan’s father, saying the final posting on the MySpace account read “The world would be a better place without you.”
Late on the afternoon of Oct. 16, 2006, Ron and Tina Meier discovered Megan had hanged herself in her closet. Megan, who died the following day, was a few weeks shy of her 14th birthday.
The newpaper breaking this story refused to identify the adults who perpetuated this suicide. This has raised a great deal of controversy which I can understand. How could you not expose the persons responsible for this? Not only are the adults not identified, but it seems that they actually didn’t break any laws. Its amazing that you can drive a emotionally vulnerable young person to death and yet suffer no penalty. Sometimes there just isn’t any justice. Are we not responsible for our own actions and the effects of those actions? Especially when those actions result in the tragic death of a child.
November 20th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Thank you for posting this. Cyberbullying is becoming more common, and something we could all use more education on. I believe those involved should be held accoutable, especially the adults that participated.