Brody's Notes... New Jersey Governor Signs Comprehensive Anti-Bullying Law

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R)

Photo By Shane Smith  Jersey City Independent 

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) JAN 6 | New Jersey's Governor, Chris Christie (R), this morning signed into law the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, which protects all students bullied for any reason. The legislation maintains the language of New Jersey's existing anti-bullying law, enacted in 2002, which enumerates protection of students based on their actual or perceived race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and has clear language protecting students bullied for any other reason. The law will continue to apply to students bullied for any reason and enacts a new paradigm in America to counter school bullying and provides a template for anti-bullying laws in other U.S. states. 

The bill had passed both houses of the New Jersey legislature on November 22, 2010 – by 73 to 1 in the Assembly and 30 to 0 in the Senate. Though New Jersey and 44 other states have had anti-bullying laws, experts say those laws have been based on a vague, loophole-riddled model that gives vast discretion to local school districts to do whatever they want or don’t want, and have lacked teeth to work in the real world. The Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights corrects that problem with a sweeping overhaul of New Jersey's current anti-bullying law, enacted in 2002

In a statement released by Garden State Equality, Steven Goldstein, the Chairman of Garden State Equality said:

“We are grateful to the prime sponsors, Assemblywomen Valerie Vainieri Huttle and Mary Pat Angelini, and Senators Barbara Buono, Diane Allen and Loretta Weinberg, for their leadership that brought Democrats and Republicans together rapidly. The overwhelmingly bipartisan support for this landmark legislation will give impetus to other states across America, whether they are blue or red, to adopt anti-bullying laws just like ours. The era of vagueness and loopholes in anti-bullying laws is over, and hope for our children has begun.”