Principal ignored her bullying complaints, so she left him hanging on stage — and the internet's on her side

Dressed in pink, a slender girl wearing a stylish white graduation cap that curled at the end just like her blonde hair, walked onto the stage to receive her diploma, but refused to shake hands with the principal. This was a child’s response to her unresponsive teachers when she'd raised complaints of being bullied. Sarah Delaney shared the incident in a viral TikTok video where she witnessed her sister, Laura, casually ignoring the male teacher and her principal during her graduation ceremony at Lancaster County Career and Technology Institute, Pennsylvania.

On stage, Laura left their hands midair. No handshake. No eye contact. Laura’s response echoed many voices that were buried because of fear, stress, and depression, all caused due to bullying. The situation grew worse when teachers decided to look away and ignore the bullies instead of addressing it. Bullying has become a part and parcel of US culture, with nearly half of the teens reported as being bullied in a survey conducted by Pew Research in 2022.

The most affected of those children are girls. 49% of the girls reported being a target of cyberbullying of any kind, as compared to 43% of the teen boys. Shifting to high school, the classroom was the most common place of bullying in 2019-2020, as reported by the same survey in another article. 47% of students ages 12 to 18 said they were bullied during that school year. Other frequently reported locations included hallways or stairwells (39%), the cafeteria (26%), and outside on school grounds (20%).

Where the reports and data are filled with numerical representation of students being bullied in at least seven different ways, the law protecting them, on the other hand, is inadequate. US federal laws classify bullying as a subcategory of interpersonal aggression characterized by intentionality, repetition, and an imbalance of power, with abuse of power being a primary distinction between bullying and other forms of aggression. This invariably gets confused with harassment. For instance, if someone called a kid fat, this definition will not cover this as bullying, until the plaintiff introduces the factor of power imbalance.

The revolutionary Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education stated that “schools could be held accountable for reported cases of bullying” since rising cases made them consider the problem as a serious social issue by the state, as mentioned by the American Psychological Association. However, post then, not many schools have taken the responsibility of being accountable due to the ambiguous “could be” in the statement. Then, again in 2010, the US Department of Education started a series of “Dear Colleagues” letters that were sent to the schools nationwide to guide teachers with appropriate actions to address and prevent bullying.

The letters have been used to bring about a change in the way teachers respond to children’s bullying. However, this viral video shows the lopsidedness of the government's actions and the reality. It has also sparked a debate again on how many school guardians are aware of or take necessary actions to prevent bullying. People share their views in the comments, “The embarrassment they probably felt isn’t even close to what people feel being bullied, proud of you, girlie," wrote @coconell92. "I notice she shook the women’s hands but not the men... goes to show you which teachers she felt cared for her, and it’s not surprising at all, it was only the women. You go, girl! And congratulations!" said @oriole127. Another user, @colin.cloutier8, affirmed, "The biggest lie told in school is that bullying will not be tolerated."

If you're being bullied, please text 'CONNECT' to 741741 for free, confidential support from a trained volunteer Crisis Counselor, available 24/7

You can follow Sarah on TikTok, who goes by @sarahdhammond.