Idaho legislators display stunning cruelty, hypocrisy in killing anti-bullying bill | Opinion

Idaho legislators this week rejected a bill that would have required school principals to notify parents and guardians of a student’s involvement in harassment, intimidation, bullying, violence or self-harm.

In killing House Bill 539, some Republican lawmakers displayed a stunning lack of self-awareness and logic, even by their standards.

For starters, Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, said he was concerned that it was going to add more responsibility to the school district and the principal, according to Boise State Public Radio.

“The poor principal is going to get this, ‘Oh one more thing I have to report ... so and so was intimidated or harassed because he’s a 49ers fan. Do I report this to the parents?’” Skaug said. “It’s going to open things up for more lawsuits that will be successful, in my humble opinion.”

First of all, what a cavalier, heartless, dismissive attitude.

Idaho had the fifth-highest youth suicide rate in the country from 1999 to 2020, according to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, but Skaug is dismissing the problem by jesting about whether someone is being teased for being a 49ers fan?

How cruel and clueless.

But second, if Skaug is so worried about principals, maybe he should talk to one of them.

How about fellow Republican Rep. Julie Yamamoto, R-Caldwell, a retired teacher and principal? She voted for the bill.

What about teachers? What do they think?

Republican Reps. Matt Bundy, Chenele Dixon, Jack Nelsen and Greg Lanting and Democratic Rep. Sonia Galaviz — all teachers — voted in favor of the bill.

In fact, everyone in the House who works in a school now or used to work in one voted for the bill.

But why listen to them, Rep. Skaug? A slip-and-fall lawyer from Nampa must know better than principals and teachers.

Of course, it’s people like Skaug who have put some onus on principals by passing a bill that requires them to keep track of which bathrooms students use.

Which brings us to the issue of transgender students, for whom Idaho Republican legislators like Skaug have shown nothing but scorn and derision.

Banning gender-affirming care, banning transgender girls from girls sports, banning kids from using the bathroom they identify with, and protecting teachers who don’t want to use a student’s preferred pronouns are all bills these legislators support, making life more difficult for students.

And if you think these attacks on transgender students don’t have an impact, just look at what’s happening in other parts of the country.

The bill’s failure comes just two weeks after the death of an Oklahoma teen, Nex Benedict, who was killed in a fight in a bathroom at a high school.

Whether we like it or not, children spend many of their waking hours in school, and schools are often the first line of defense when a child is having trouble.

As the Idaho Statesman reported in December, there were four student suicides in just two months in the Boise School District alone and a total of at least eight reported to the Ada County Coroner’s Office in a four-month period last year.

The hypocrisy of voting against this bill was lost on Rep. John Vander Woude, R-Nampa, who said schools already can report bullying to parents.

“I think the schools can already do this,” he said on the House floor. “If this is a good policy, let them develop that policy. And I don’t think we need a law that makes them have to do it. If they think it’s a good one, then they should do it.”

Apparently, though, that line of reasoning doesn’t work for guns in schools. School districts already can adopt policies that allow school employees to carry guns on campus, but legislators this year, Vander Woude included, voted to take that decision out of the hands of school districts and passed a bill to make it mandatory for school districts to allow employees to carry in class.

The mental gymnastics that some of these Republican legislators go through is truly amazing.

In this case, they argued their way right out of a very good bill that very well may have saved lives.

Statesman editorials are the unsigned opinion of the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board. Board members are opinion editor Scott McIntosh, opinion writer Bryan Clark, editor Chadd Cripe, newsroom editors Dana Oland and Jim Keyser and community members Mary Rohlfing and Patricia Nilsson.