Billy Wolfe made the front page of the New York Times as “A boy the bullies love to beat up, repeatedly.” He also appeared on the Today Show. His parents are suing some of the boys who attacked him and threatening to sue the school district for failing to protect him. I wrote about it in Bullying Billy.
But Walter Olson of Overlawyered thinks the Times missed the full story. The Northwest Arkansas Times quotes teenagers who say Billy Wolfe is unpopular because he harasses and bullies others.
Dylan Gray smiles as he sits on the couch on a cool spring night and tells a story of a boy at school who likes to call him names, like stupid or retarded. The couch is a nice change from the wheelchair to which his muscular dystrophy normally confines him.
This same boy sneaks up behind Gray and screams in his ear, which is sensitive to noise because of his medical condition. As Gray relates the experience, this next-door neighbor once pounded him in the back of the head several times with a medium-sized rubber ball despite Gray’s protest.
The story sounds familiar, perhaps as familiar as the one the national media brought out last week about Billy Wolfe, the Fayetteville High School sophomore who recently filed a lawsuit against a number of students he claims has bullied him. The only difference is that in Gray’s story, Wolfe is the bully and Gray is the victim.
In surveys, many students say they’ve been bullied and bullied others. The two roles aren’t exclusive. Wolfe may deal with his feelings of vulnerability by harassing weaker students.
At any rate, as Olson writes, the story wouldn’t have generated so much reaction if the Times reporter had looked at school discipline records and interviewed the other boys. I suspect that only the Wolfes were cooperating at that stage. It’s easier for a local reporter to get people’s trust.
Well, if there’s one thing you can be certain of, the NY Times isn’t going to let facts stand in the way of a good profitable story.
Researcher Dan Olweus found that really, not that many children are bullies and victims– that is a myth. But some children are– about 10 to 20% of all bullies. Olweus calls them the “provocative victims” and they actually need more help, more interventions, etc., than typical bullies because they have more personality disorders. Perhaps Billy is a provocative victim. Every teacher can think of a provocative victim– he/she drives adults crazy, often bullies younger children, but gets bullied by his peers.
It doesn’t sound like Billy is both bully and victim. It sounds like, from the Northwest Times, he gets punched out by people fed up with his bullying.
The additional information is certainly not surprising. We like to think that there are clearly identified “bullies,” “victims” and “bystanders.” Life is usually messier than that. This is why school efforts to counteract bullying need to be more comprehensive than punishing the kid who did the hitting. There are times when adults need to discuss problems and solutions with a wider group than the one who did it and the one s/he did it to.
Having had some experience with victim/bullies, I have found it to be frequently helpful to call out the behavior, but also involve something more group oriented in combatting the isolation of kids who are victims. I have had groups agree to buddy systems to both help and protect some of those kids who want to badly to belong and be noticed despite their total lack of any ability to go about it in ways that will bring them success. It’s usually good to rotate because a single kid can get burned out if its always them. And you have to be a bit careful not to set the kid up by assigning a bully to be a buddy.
I read the whole article that this referenced, and I just gotta say–while I am willing to accept that the victim has some problems–I am very cautious when I hear the sort of “he was just asking for it,” kind of excuses. It really feeds supports a mentality that sometimes it is OK to bash someone in the face (which it isn’t) but it also excuses harassment of certain groups considered to have “asked for it” such as people who are gay, or perceived because of differences to be uppity or have attitude problems, etc, etc.
I knew one kid in junior high who was like Billy. Nobody liked him because he was a bully. Looking back, I feel sorry for him because I don’t think he had the nicest life and that probably contributed to his behavior, but if he had tried suing anybody everybody would have laughed. Actually, I don’t remember if the kid was actively picked on in retaliation for his bullying ways, because I normally went out of my way to avoid him. But one time he did shove me and I reacted by shoving him back. Another time in phys ed, he was picking on a pair of twins because they happened to be albino; my older brother got angry and backed him up against the wall, threatening him if he didn’t cut it out. If this had happened to Billy Wolfe, I’m sure my brother and I would have become two more names on the list of Billy’s supposed tormentors.
That said, I know a lot of people are saying, “Well, just because Billy was a jerk doesn’t make it okay for others to bully him…” But I say that it should matter whether Billy’s lawsuit has merit. Billy should be allowed to punish the other kids, as long as the other kids are allowed to punish Billy (all through the court system of course, I’m not saying that they should be allowed to beat each other up). The other kids should start a suit against Billy then, for his constant harrassment and bullying. That way it can ALL be solved through the court system.
I’d be in favor of Dylan Gray suing Billy Wolfe if Wolfe wins.
That way everybody learns!
I had a student who was constantly bullied because he struggled in school. Also, he wasn’t that savvy when dealing with his peers. He brought brain scans to school to show the other students why he had a difficult time. It didn’t matter. The bullying continued. This boy did nothing to encourage the treatment he received. I know that in some cases students are bullied because of the way they treat others. However, this is not something that should be assumed.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing plays out again.