This story (link to story) shows the depths to which reactionaries will go to hurt people. Note, the cause of the bullying was that this child, as well as being both brilliant and autistic, is pro-environmentalist. Seldom have I gotten so angry reading a story.
What is also notable is that the school district, to save money, convinced this child's parents that he could thrive without an aide. In fact, he was eaten alive.
So predictable. So sad.
Autistic BBHS student tired of being bullied (link)
By Nathan Mayberg
Ben Ehrman, a sophomore at Blind Brook High School, has an A average. That kind of academic achievement isn’t enough to keep the bullies at his school away from him. The autistic student said he was the subject of relentless daily taunting for nearly the whole month of January. His autism appears to have made him a target for the harassment.
Ben, 17, is in his second year as a mainstreamed student at Blind Brook, where he has been with an aide for most of the time. Previously, he was in a self-contained classroom with special education students. His mother, Esther, an elementary special education teacher in Mount Vernon, said the aide was pulled back in December. They were told the move would increase Ben’s independence, which made sense to them at the time.
However, once the aide was gone, Ehrman said students began taunting her son incessantly. Some of the students would shout and curse at him. In one incident during lunch, she said her son was chased by a group of other high school students.
Their favorite way to tease him, she said, was by poking fun at his devotion to environmental causes. "My son is very environmentally conscious," she said. For example, some have used expletives when taunting his affinity for endangered polar bears. Sometimes they would throw recyclables in the garbage and tease him. Ehrman said there were many such incidents.
*********************
Ms. Ehrman said Wermuth (an Assistant Principal) was "the only one who took responsibility...I think the world of her."
"I can’t say very much for some of the students at Blind Brook," she stated. "They will realize that it is wrong in the future."
Ms. Ehrman said the situation at Blind Brook was "getting really out of hand." Victimization, she said, is encouraged among some students. She believes the district should have more strict rules regarding bullying and should engage in sensitivity training. "Something has to be done."