A fifteen year old girl in Boston named Phoebe Prince committed suicide last year. She saw this act as the only solution to the bullying she suffered at the hands of her classmates.   

Though I don’t condone suicide, I can see why she decided this.

Most of the bullying took place at school. Faculty members witnessed girls teasing her or calling her names, but they did nothing to stop it. Other students knew, but they continued on with their lives and ignored the problem. I’m sure Prince wished for someone, anyone, to step in and tell the bullies they had no right to torture her.

The nation met the story with outrage. Several of the bullies were indicted, but many of them will only be tried as minors despite the calculated cruelty they showed towards Prince.

Girls even bragged about how they drove her to commit suicide, acting as though it were a form of social justice instead of a tragedy. They acted like she deserved her fate for daring to date a popular senior football player when she was a freshman “new girl” from Ireland. Some even went so far as to leave nasty messages on her Facebook memorial page.

These students showed no mercy towards Prince, therefore they do not deserve to get the equivalent of a slap on the wrist for their actions.

The saddest fact of all is that bullying of this scale happens in schools all across the nation, and until people take a stand, it will continue until tragedies like this become a common ordeal.