Photo by House of Sims.

Following a national uptick in awareness of the detrimental effects of bullying, especially on LGBT youth, Virginia is considering making bullying a crime. Arlington/Alexandria Delegate Adam Ebbin proposed to make extreme cases of bullying a class-one misdemeanor: punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine. On top of that, the legislation would allow the victims to sue their bullies.

The bill would also require any physical injury from bullying to be reported to the commonwealth’s attorney. The bill, if passed, would set unprecedented consequences for bullying.

A separate bill, introduced by Delegate David Englin, who represents Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax counties, would require schools to report incidents to superintendents, have procedures in place to separate victims from bullies, and make teacher training about bullying mandatory.

Following the death of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers student who committed suicide after being bullied, D.C. considered legislation that would also outline more concrete consequences for bullying. The legislation, not as aggressive as Virginia’s, would require all D.C. publicly-run schools to adopt an anti-bullying and harassment policy. Two anti-bullying bills had been introduced separately and will be combined and likely voted on early this year.

If the aftermath of Clementi’s suicide and the “It Gets Better” video campaign are concrete legislative actions to limit and punish bullying, that’s a good thing. However, the legislation should also be realistic and enforceable.