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ADL Suggests Anti-Bullying Measures

Picks its battles wisely, for a change

by
Marc Tracy
August 05, 2010

In time for next week’s Federal Bullying Prevention Summit, in Washington, D.C., the Anti-Defamation League announced that it has compiled recommendations for lawmakers and the executive branch to adopt in order to play an active role in combating bullying. These include generalized notions like formulating a model anti-bullying policy to specific, up-to-date ideas like educating parents and children about Internet literacy in an effort to curb cyberbullying. (Parenting columnist Marjorie Ingall and Liel Leibovitz had a heated debate about cyberbullying last month in Tablet Magazine.)

This is all great. My additional point being, of course, in the wake of the Cordoba House kerfuffle, that I hope the ADL remembers what its mandate is: In its words, to “counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.” There are still plenty of important issues—like that of bullying and cyberbullying—on which it deserves to remain an influential voice. (Whether Abraham Foxman should retain the privilege of harnessing that voice is a different question.)

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.