How would you like to rob a bank without wearing a disguise, or get caught red-handed on security cameras and never go on trial for the crime, even though many people know who you are and/or where you live? Or perhaps you’d like to run multiple red lights, get your license plate and face photographed by traffic cameras and never pay a fine. Or maybe you and your friends would like to post a video on Facebook, in which you threaten to rape and kill someone, and never suffer a single consequence.
That’s quite a world you’d be living in. While the first two scenarios are unlikely, the third is not only possible, it happened. And it happened in our school district.
In January, three students at Corona del Mar High School got drunk (or, so they say) and made a video that was posted for about eight days on a fourth student’s Facebook page. In the video, which is a disgusting, shameful, expletive-filled display of ignorance, the boys threatened to rape and kill a fellow student. The story now is not about homophobia, racism or any other type of discrimination. The story is about the school district’s failure to enforce its own policy on bullying, which is clearly defined as, “any gestures, comments, threats or actions … which cause or threaten to cause … bodily harm or personal degradation.”
