Let’s take a moment to realize that 95% of you hadn’t heard of cafe mom as an outlet until just now. And that the article’s headline is misleading/tabloidy at best. And while the rest seems well researched, it’s clearly misleading a bit. If you start beating a kid on the bus and ask others to join in, it’s not a surprise that you get suspended. Yes, she’s also the victim of terrible bullying and felt let down by the faculty (who - understandably - may need more than hearsay before they start taking action). You can still not beat people up. Nobody doesn’t understand that she did it. And indeed even the police looks at all of this as mitigating circumstances. And she’s back in school and on probation and that’s hopefully what they do with all kids who start fistfights. The buried headline is that the other kid is under police investigation, which has the potential not only to get him suspended after all but will have even more serious consequences. From what I read here, the system works as well as it can but the story is written to cause outrage.

I understand that victims of bullying like this or sexual assault in general face an uphill battle they never wanted to fight. And with the details in this story I can totally understand why the girl snapped. And I wish her nothing but the best and appropriate punishment for the kids who circulated the images. And still, you can’t resort to violence and expect not to be punished for it. We are not talking about self defense here.