Father of cyberbullying victim bringing story to Glenbard North

Kids being kids. That's how John Halligan repeatedly dismissed his 13-year-old son Ryan's complaints of being bullied.

That changed dramatically when Halligan, on a business trip, received a frantic call from his wife.

Ryan had hanged himself.

Shortly after his son's death in October 2003, Halligan looked through Ryan's e-mails and instant message exchanges and soon discovered his son had been an online target for humiliation by some classmates in Essex Junction, Vt. The computer Halligan had assumed Ryan used to play online games had become a powerful weapon in the hands of his son's tormentors.

“Technology has made a lot of things easier and simpler,” Halligan said. “But technology, it's not the evil. It's how you decide to use it.”

Halligan also learned most Vermont schools did not have published policies on bullying, much less cyberbullying. Along with Vermont state Rep. Peter Hunt, who had been Ryan's principal in elementary school, Halligan began a battle to force schools to create and publish, either online or in a handbook, a policy that clearly stated the definition of bullying and the punishment for waging it. Just seven months after Ryan's death, the bill was signed into law.

“It was just my way of dealing with grief,” Halligan said. “I saw an opportunity to do something significant in my son's memory. Schools were not being very thoughtful with this. Schools were not being very clear.”

This week, Halligan comes to the suburbs to tell his story.

He will appear at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Glenbard North High School, 990 Kuhn Road, Carol Stream, and at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Marquardt District 15 Administration Center, 1860 Glen Ellyn Road, Glendale Heights. The free program, part of the Glenbard High School District 87 Parent Series, is open to all.

The cruelest thing

As co-president of Glenbard West High School's Prism Club, an anti-bullying group that also serves as a gay-straight student alliance, senior Mallory Mack said she hears stories of bullying constantly at the Glen Ellyn school.

One girl told her that the harassment and verbal abuse went so far that she had to get teachers and administrators involved. Mack herself has been a target of bullying, and she said introducing the online component to it makes it that much tougher.

“It's one of the cruelest things you can do to a teenager,” she said. “The most hurtful thing is that it probably is going to be another teenager. It makes you feel horrible because you think the general public thinks that of you.”

The club has scheduled a presentation at a freshmen orientation session in February to discuss bullying.

“It just gets nasty, and I don't know how you can really prevent it,” she said.

School officials hope one of the first steps toward prevention is to include online bullying in its student discipline policy. Following a summer that saw Gov. Pat Quinn sign a bill that expanded the state's law to cover cyberbullying and bullying that pertains to sexual orientation, District 87 revisited its own policies.

At its next board meeting Dec. 13, officials are expected to adopt a policy revision that adds cyberbullying to an already long list of bullying offenses. The changes align with recommendations of the Illinois Association of School Boards.

Superintendent Mike Meissen said student surveys have shown that a “good percentage” of students have witnessed or been the recipient of harassment in school.

“It is definitely there,” he said. “The use of technology might give the feeling that they can interact and that it's not face to face. But it really is and it's hurtful. Anything hurtful or unwanted concerns us as a school district.”

The policy now includes “bullying using a school computer or a school computer network.”

“There has to be an awareness level that it can take many forms and it's just not permissible,” Meissen said.

Ryan's story

Bullies had tormented Ryan Halligan for years. What had started as teasing about his lack of coordination and academic struggles in elementary school followed him to middle school.

However, the tormentors had ramped up the attacks and during the summer of 2003 spread a rumor that Ryan was gay.

In an effort to squash the rumor, he struck up an online correspondence with one of the school's “popular” girls. But the girl was in cahoots with Ryan's foes and only feigned an interest in him.

When eighth grade began, the girl humiliated him in front of her friends by calling Ryan a loser and saying she wanted nothing to do with him. The girl had been secretly sharing conversations and detailed exchanges all summer. Ryan was crushed.

“Quite frankly, I wanted to throttle these kids,” said Halligan, who discovered the online material by using the password Ryan had shared with him.

Delayed speech development forced Ryan into special education classes until fifth grade. When he began regular education classes, however, he still struggled academically. The bullies picked up on it and teased him for it.

As his son went through middle school, Halligan said, he had finally started to find himself and his interests, particularly in the arts.

“He had these strengths,” Halligan said. “He was a very sweet kid, very sensitive. He was artistic and starting to find his own place.”

That made the news of Ryan's death even more baffling.

“We knew he struggled to fit in, but we didn't put it all together until a few days after,” Halligan said. Halligan logged on to his son's account and struck up conversations through e-mails and instant messages to find out more.

It was then that he learned how large of a role the Internet, which at the time had not yet evolved into the Facebook-dominated one of today, had played in his son's death.

“There are more kids emboldened to go this path, which is unfortunate,” Halligan said. “The damage they can do is incredible. But the silver lining is that technology has brought this issue of bullying to the forefront. Technology has put it in our faces.”

Easy to tease

A February study by the Cyberbullying Research Center showed that 20.8 percent of 10- to 18-year-olds surveyed had been bullied while online. A slightly lower number, 19.4 percent, admitted to bullying others online.

The technology has made it much easier for those who want to do harm to do so without accountability.

“It gives kids a chance to be anonymous and a chance to be a part of a bigger social group and target one kid while feeling powerful in this group,” said Naperville-based child psychologist Mary Plonis. “Adolescence is not an easy time, and finding that cohort to fit in with, even at the expense of someone else, is powerful.”

Plonis, who taught special education 15 years before starting work as a child psychologist in 2006, said parental involvement takes on a much larger role when it comes to online bullying. She said parents have to know what their children do online, even if the children push back against their efforts.

As Facebook has grown in stature, the bullies have made it easier for others to join in on the teasing. Facebook groups and sites like Formspring, which allows anonymous questions and comments about others, have become a part of students' day-to-day activities.

“Historically, while bullying has been difficult, the bully has been known,” Plonis said. “Today, the bullies can be any of a number of people.”

Hold bystanders accountable

About one year after the new Vermont law took effect, Halligan said not much had changed. He decided then that he would take his message directly to the people he says must be part of the ultimate solution: students themselves.

“We've been focused too much on the bullies and the bullied,” he said. “We have to look at the bystanders; we have to pick those kids off one at a time, hold them accountable and put them on the spot.”

Plonis agreed.

“It would be ideal if folks who were witnessing (the bullying) would step in. ... When bystanders have information, it's important to be able to go to administrators or trusted teachers,” she said.

Despite the loss of his son, Halligan said seeing news reports of cyberbullying is a positive step to helping others avoid the tragedy he had to endure.

“Bullying has been going on for generations, but we are paying a price for ignoring it until now,” Halligan said. “Technology has put it in our faces. The evidence is now right in our face.”