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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (July 27, 2019)
NATION Saturday, July 27, 2019 East Oregonian A7 Girls report more harassment amid rise in U.S. cyberbullying Three times as many girls reporting being harassed online or by text message than boys AP Photo/Dave Collins Supporters of immigrant Sujitno Sajuti rally outside the fed- eral courthouse in Hartford, Conn. By SALLY HO Associated Press SEATTLE — Rachel Whalen remembers feeling gutted in high school when a former friend would mock her online post- ings, threaten to unfollow or unfriend her on social media and post inside jokes about her to others online. The cyberbullying was so distressing that Whalen said she contemplated sui- cide. Once she got help, she decided to limit her time on social media. It helps to take a break from it for per- spective, said Whalen, now a 19-year-old college stu- dent in Utah. There’s a rise in cyber- bullying nationwide, with three times as many girls reporting being harassed online or by text message than boys, according to the National Center for Educa- tion Statistics. The U.S. Department of Education’s research and data arm this month released its latest survey, which shows an uptick in online abuse, though the overall number of students who report being bullied stayed the same. “There’s just some pressure in that competi- tive atmosphere that is all about attention,” Whalen said. “This social media acceptance — it just makes sense to me that it’s more predominant amongst girls.” Many school systems that once had a hands-off approach to dealing with off-campus student behav- As Trump expands deportation powers, immigrants prepare AP Photo/Rick Bowmer Rachel Whalen, 19, was so distressed about the cyberbullying she suffered in high school that she contemplated suicide. Whalen is now a college student in Utah. ior are now making rules around cyberbullying, out- lining punishments, such as suspension or expul- sion, according to Bryan Joffe, director of educa- tion and youth develop- ment at AASA, a national school superintendents association. That change partly came along with broader cyberbullying laws, which have been adopted in states like Texas and California in recent years. The survey showed about 20%, or one in five students, reported being bullied, ranging from rumors or being excluded to threats and physical attacks in the 2016-17 school year. That’s unchanged from the previous survey done in 2014-15. But in that two- year span, cyberbully- ing reports increased sig- nificantly, from 11.5% to 15.3%. Broken down by gen- der, 21% of girls in middle and high school reported being bullied online or by text message in the 2016- 17 school year, compared with less than 7% of boys. That’s up from the pre- vious survey in 2014-15, the first time cyberbullying data was collected this spe- cifically. Back then, about 16% of girls between 12 and 18 said they were bul- lied online, compared with 6% of boys. The survey doesn’t address who the aggressors are, though girls were more likely to note that their bul- lies were perceived to have the ability to influence others. Lauren Paul, founder of the Kind Campaign, said 90% of the stories she hears while working in schools are girls being bullied by other girls. The California-based nonprofit launched a decade ago to focus on “girl against girl” bullying through free edu- cational programming that reaches about 300 schools a year. Paul recalls meeting one girl who was obses- sive about her social media accounts because a group of girls excluded her if she did not get enough likes or follows in any given week. She went so far as to pains- takingly create fake profiles just to meet her quota. “Most of the time — if not almost all the time — it’s about what’s going on with other girls,” Paul said. “It’s this longing to be accepted by their female peers specifically and feel- ing broken if they don’t.” Though Paul primarily hosts assemblies and work- shop exercises at middle and high schools, she said there’s been more demand to help younger and older students in recent years. The Kind Campaign has gotten more requests for elementary school presen- tations and now also regu- larly gets called to universi- ties to work with sororities. The latest national data may spark new conversa- tions about “Mean Girls” behavior, Joffe said, refer- ring to 2004 movie starring Lindsay Lohan. “It’s a school issue, but it’s just a reflection of broader societal issues,” Joffe said. A sweeping expansion of deportation powers has sent chills through immigrant communities By SOPHIA TAREEN Associated Press CHICAGO — A sweep- ing expansion of deportation powers unveiled this week by the Trump administra- tion has sent chills through immigrant communities and prompted some lawyers to advise migrants to gather up as much documentation as possible — pay stubs, apart- ment leases or even gym key tags — to prove they’ve been in the U.S. But the uncertainty about how the policy might play out has created confusion and made it harder to give clear guidance to immi- grants. Attorneys and immi- grant rights groups gave con- flicting advice about whether to carry these documents. The new rules will allow immigration officers nation- wide to deport anyone who has been here illegally for less than two years. Cur- rently, authorities can only exercise such powers within 100 miles of the border and only target people who have been here less than two weeks. Critics say the new policy will embolden Immigration Customs and Enforcement officers to indiscriminately round up immigrants, depriving them of a chance to make their cases before a judge or consult with a lawyer. Some have called it a “show me your papers” trope on a national scale, and roughly 300,000 immigrants living in the country illegally could be affected by the expansion, according to one estimate by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. Attorneys immediately began advising immigrants to start compiling documents that prove they had been in the country for at least two years — anything showing a consistent presence in the United States. But they don’t have to necessarily carry it with them. “We’re operating abso- lutely blind at the moment,” said David Leopold, an immigration attorney in Cleveland. For years, immigrant rights groups have advised people without legal status to not carry any identification with a place of origin on it so it doesn’t come back to hurt them in immigration court.