| This doesn't sound like a result of "zero tolerance" policies, unless the one faking being attacked was also punished, but you didn't mention it. And if that's the case "zero tolerance" would on the face of it seem to discourage this kind of fakery by punishing the faker too. Even the comment before doesn't sound that relevant to the normal complaint because again, the two parties aren't both being punished, just the one reported to the system as a potential threat. So we are complaining: 1. The victim and the perpetrator are equally punished (because it's hard to figure out who started it when a physical fight starts) 2. People shouldn't always believe reports of kids being potential school shooters, because they might be liars doing a mini-(or indeed literal) SWATing by weaponizing the institutional response. 3. People shouldn't always believe people who complain about bullies generally, because they might be liars being "cry-bullies" These individually sounds like hard problems to solve. Combined they have further complexities and solutions for one seen to make others worse. The tone of these complaints often make it seem like there is an obvious better way, but that may in fact just reflect the strong feeling that they were the victim, and that the other person should have been punished, not them (or their child). Which is understandable but not really a great basis to make policy on. |
The implication is that the system overreacts one way only, taking the word of the victim at face value and then applying "zero tolerance" towards the perceived bully.
Like I mentioned "if the system overreacts, bullies would be stupid not to use the over-reaction in their favor". Think of it like a tree that's unbalanced and leaning heavily one way, well you can make it fall on someone by pushing it in the way it leans, it won't take much effort to do that, it's already leaning as opposed taking tree standing tall and trying to topple that down on someone.