An Analysis of Anti-Bullying Laws in the United States

Abstract

Bullying is a public health concern that results in diminished well-being for children and adolescents. One approach that lawmakers have taken to address bullying is enacting anti-bullying laws, which require school districts to establish bullying prevention policies. In this study, researchers used standard legal epidemiology methods to systematically retrieve and analyze anti-bullying laws in the United States (US). While they found that every US state and the District of Columbia has a school anti-bullying law, there is wide variation in their scope and requirements. Some jurisdictions specified requirements that school districts must implement in their anti-bullying policies, while others deferred policy enactment entirely to school districts. Given the differences in requirements and scoping afforded in anti-bullying laws, understanding the important components included in such policies can help provide policymakers and practitioners with information about bullying prevention strategies across jurisdictions.

Introduction

In 2023, 19.2% of US high school students reported being bullied on school property and 16.3% reported being cyberbullied in the prior twelve months.¹ Further, in a 2022 survey, half of all US teens reported being cyberbullied at some point in their life.² Bullying is defined as:

“any unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or group of youths who are not siblings or current dating partners that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. Bullying may inflict harm or distress on the targeted youth including physical, psychological, social, or educational harm.”³

Bullying may include threats or actual violence that can be physical, verbal, relational or involving damage to property, and can happen online (cyberbullying) and/or offline.⁴ Cyberbullying may include sharing content about someone else that causes harm, emotional distress, embarrassment or humiliation.⁵

Bullying results in diminished well-being and social isolation and is associated with negative health outcomes including increased incidence of depression and anxiety and risk of suicide and suicidal ideation that may last into adulthood.⁶ Some groups experience an increased burden of both bullying and its deleterious health effects including, but not limited to, female youth; lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth; youth who are obese; youth with disabilities; immigrant youth; and military-associated youth.⁷

One prevention approach that has been used by jurisdictions to address bullying is enacting school anti-bullying laws (ABLs). Since 2015, each US state and the District of Columbia (DC) has had an ABL in effect.⁸ However, the requirements of such laws vary across jurisdictions. The US Department of Education (DOE) identified key components found in ABLs, including: definitions of bullying, incident reporting procedures, investigation procedures, consequences for bullying, referrals for students involved in bullying, policy communications, and training and prevention measures.⁹ While including more components results in a more expansive ABL, there is still wide variation in the structure and scope of ABLs across the country.¹⁰ For example, some ABLs include numerous specific requirements for school districts to implement, while other laws defer to the individual school districts to create anti-bullying programs.¹¹ The impact of ABLs on bullying outcomes has been examined in the research literature. One study found that adolescents in states that have adopted at least one of the DOE-recommended ABL components have reduced odds of reporting bullying and cyberbullying compared to students in states that did not adopt any of the DOE-recommended components, while findings from another study indicated that ABLs are associated with improved overall student safety.¹² Other studies also examined ABLs’ impact on health-related outcomes, finding that ABLs were associated with reduced risk of suicide and suicidal ideation in adolescents.¹³

Existing research published in 2024 contains a database of ABLs including the components within. However, this research only describes laws in effect as of or prior to January 1, 2018, which is a noted limitation in the publication.¹⁴ Additionally, prior reports do not distinguish between required and recommended components, included hazing, which we consider distinct from bullying, and failed to provide clear definitions and criteria for components.¹⁵ This current legal study is a significant update to prior research, by describing the landscape and characteristics of ABLs in the 50 US states and DC through October 2023 in detail, which allows further investigation into the relationship between individual components of anti-bullying policy and potential implications on bullying rates and adolescent safety.

Methods

ABLs in all 50 states and DC were systematically collected and analyzed using standard legal epidemiology research methods in an iterative process.¹⁶ Thomson Reuters Westlaw (“Westlaw”), an online legal research database, was utilized to collect ABLs found in statutory and regulatory codes effective as of October 3, 2023.¹⁷ The following refined search string was used to search Westlaw for relevant statutes and regulations: advanced: SD(bully! antibully! anti-bully! cyberbully! cyber-bully!) SD(harass! /p student!) SD(harass! /p peer!) SD(harass! /p pupil!). If collected ABLs cited or otherwise related to laws that were not returned in the search, those laws were assessed and included if relevant to bullying policy. Finally, researchers cross-referenced collected laws with DOE’s assessment of ABLs published by StopBullying.gov, assessed any laws not identified in the search, and included those laws if relevant and within scope (Supplement).

Laws were included if they related to the prevention of bullying or harassment of students in grades K-12. Laws that were retrieved in the search were excluded if they applied only to higher education entities (such as a state hazing law for universities). Additionally, laws were excluded if they were focused solely on sexual harassment.

The laws identified for this study were subsequently coded to identify the following DOE-recommended ABL components: (a) definition of bullying, (b) definition of cyberbullying, (c) scope of policy for in-person bullying, (d) scope of policy for cyberbullying, (e) inclusion of protected groups, (f) inclusion of consequences, (g) training requirements for teachers, (h) education requirements for students, (i) teacher reporting requirements, (j) parental notification requirements, (k) provision of resources to students who bully, and (l) provision of resources to students who are bullied. The definition of bullying and cyberbullying was coded yes or no if the terms were defined in the included laws. Scope of policy for in-person bullying refers to the scope that the state requires school district bullying prevention policies to cover for in-person bullying. Scope of policy for cyberbullying refers to the scope that the state requires school district bullying prevention policies to cover for cyberbullying. Enumeration of protected groups asks whether the state lists any groups of students based on characteristics that could result in increased likelihood of bullying victimization. Consequences identifies whether school districts are required to have consequences for bullying specified within school bullying prevention policies. Training for teachers identifies states with laws that include bullying prevention training programs for teachers, staff, or volunteers, and whether that training is required or encouraged. Education requirements for students identifies states with laws that include bullying prevention programs for students, and whether the programs are required or encouraged. Teacher reporting requirements refers to the reporting of incidents of bullying by teachers to designated school officials, and whether reporting is required or encouraged. Parental notification requirements refer to whether schools are required to notify parents or guardians of students who are bullied of the student’s involvement, and whether notification is required or encouraged. Required referrals for students involved in bullying refers to the nonpunitive provision of resources for perpetrators and victims of bullying, either through a required referral to a school counselor or mental health professional, or through the discussion of available mental health resources. For more detailed coding information, see Supplement.

The compiled laws were subsequently uploaded to CDC’s Public Health Law Information Portal (PHLIP), a policy surveillance platform used to review, code, and validate coding for the laws.¹⁸ Researchers reviewed sample ABLs from the StopBullying.gov database and the initial Westlaw search to identify ABL components of interest. Researchers then created a list of coding questions (Table 1; Supplement), and two researchers acted as coders who independently categorized the contents of each state’s laws. Coders validated one another and discussed and resolved coding discrepancies, where possible, through consensus. As needed, coders involved an additional coauthor to review and resolve discrepancies. Researchers updated coding questions iteratively throughout the coding process.

Table 1.

Coding Questions and Results

	Included in Jurisdiction’s Laws (%)
Coding Question	N = 51
Does the jurisdiction define bullying?	50 (98%)
Does the jurisdiction define cyberbullying?	24 (47%)
Does the jurisdiction’s law apply to off campus bullying and cyberbullying?	17 (33%)
Does the jurisdiction’s law apply to off campus cyberbullying?	32 (63%)a
Does the jurisdiction identify any protected groups?	27 (53%)
Does the jurisdiction require school districts to include consequences for bullying in their policies?	45 (88%)
Does the jurisdiction require or encourage training for teachers on bullying prevention?	42 (82%)b
Does the jurisdiction require or encourage bullying prevention programs for students?	36 (71%)c
Does the jurisdiction require or encourage teachers to report incidents of bullying to administration?	30 (59%)d
Does the jurisdiction require or encourage schools to notify parents of bullying incidents?	34 (67%)e
Does the jurisdiction require school districts to refer students involved in bullying to counseling or another resource?	15 (29%)f

^a3 states have laws that only apply to off campus cyberbullying that takes place with a school-owned device.

^b5 states encourage but do not require training for teachers.

^c7 states and DC encourage but do not require bullying prevention programs for students.

^d3 states encourage but do not require teachers to report bullying.

^e2 states encourage but do not require schools to notify parents when bullying occurs.

^f9 states require that schools discuss available resources with students involved in bullying, but do not require referrals to mental health services.

Results

Every state and DC had an ABL in effect as of October 2023. Thirty-five jurisdictions have amended their ABLs since January 1, 2018. Wide variation exists in the structure of ABLs among the analyzed jurisdictions, with some implementing numerous policy requirements and expansive model policies that must be adopted by school districts, while others deferred anti-bullying policy determinations entirely to the individual school districts.

Definitions

Forty-nine states and DC included a definition of bullying in their ABLs (Table 1), though some jurisdictions defined bullying narrowly while others defined it broadly. Virginia, for example, defined bullying as “any aggressive and unwanted behavior that is intended to harm, intimidate, or humiliate the victim; involves a real or perceived power imbalance between the aggressor or aggressors and victim; and is repeated over time or causes severe emotional trauma.”¹⁹ The definition continued to explain that “ordinary teasing, horseplay, argument, or peer conflict” do not fall under that definition. This was a contrast with Illinois law, which had a broader construction and defined bullying as

“any severe or pervasive physical or verbal acts or conduct, including communications made in writing or electronically, directed toward a student or students that has or can be reasonably predicted to have the effect of one or more of the following: (1) placing the student or students in reasonable fear of harm to the student’s person or property; (2) causing a substantially detrimental effect on the student’s or students’ physical or mental health; (3) substantially interfering with the student’s academic performance; or (4) substantially interfering with the student’s or students’ ability to participate in or benefit from the services, or privileges provided by a school.”²⁰

Many jurisdictions defined bullying to include “electronic acts,” but only twenty-three states and DC define cyberbullying specifically (Table 1). For example, Texas defines “cyberbullying” as “bullying that is done through the use of any electronic communication device, including through the use of a cellular or other type of telephone, a computer, a camera, electronic mail, instant messaging, text messaging, a social media application, an Internet website, or any other Internet-based communication tool.”²¹ Some jurisdictions include specific examples of conduct that is considered cyberbullying. For example, Rhode Island includes “the creation of a web page or blog in which the creator assumes the identity of another person” or “the knowing impersonation of another person as the author of posted content or messages.”²²

Scope of Policies

Seventeen states require school district policies to cover in-person bullying that takes place off campus, including outside of school-sponsored events; all other states and DC allow school policies to limit their laws to in-person bullying happening on school campuses, on school transportation, and during school-sponsored events. The scope of protection for acts of cyberbullying varies. Twenty-nine states cover all off-campus cyberbullying and three states covered cyberbullying that involved a school-owned device, regardless of the student’s location (Table 1). Eighteen states and DC either did not mention cyberbullying that takes place off campus or specifically excluded cyberbullying from the scope of their policies. Most of the jurisdictions that cover off-campus bullying — including both in-person bullying and cyberbullying — require that the conduct impact the school setting to some degree.

Protected Groups

Twenty-six states and DC include explicit protections for groups of students that face increased risk of bullying, while twenty-four states do not enumerate any protected groups (Table 1). Commonly, jurisdictions include protected groups within definitions of bullying. Enumeration in most jurisdictions includes specific protected groups and defines bullying to include acts reasonably perceived as being motivated either by any actual or perceived characteristic.²³ Alabama is the only state that requires enumeration of protected groups but allows school districts to choose which characteristics are included in their individual bullying prevention policies.²⁴

Consequences

Forty-four states and DC require school districts to include consequences for students who perpetrate an act of bullying against another student (Table 1). Many of the jurisdictions do not prescribe specific consequences for acts of bullying, deferring to school districts and administrators to determine the appropriate consequences.

Training and Education

Thirty-six states and DC require bullying prevention training for teachers, staff, or volunteers who have significant contact with students (Table 1). Five states either encourage school districts to provide training to teachers or require that certain trainings be made available to teachers, but do not require the teachers to complete the training (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Maps of State Bullying Components.

Abbreviations – ABLs - Anti-bullying Laws

Twenty-eight states require bullying prevention programs for students or the inclusion of bullying prevention into the curriculum (Table 1). Seven states and DC encourage school districts to implement bullying prevention into the curriculum or make bullying prevention resources available to students (Figure 1). Examples of specified programs include instruction on bullying prevention, rights and responsibilities as related to bullying, cyberbullying prevention, and internet safety.

Teacher Reporting Requirements

Twenty-six states and DC require teachers or administrators who knew or had reason to believe that bullying had occurred to report to school administration. Three states encourage teachers to report if they have knowledge of the bullying happening. This is typified by Tennessee, which requires teachers to report known threats of bodily harm but only encourages school employees who witness acts of other forms of bullying to report it.²⁵ Some ABLs require an investigation by school administration or another designated school staff member following a report of bullying.

Parental Notification

Thirty-one states and DC require school administrators to notify parents or guardians of students who were involved in a bullying incident and two states encourage schools to notify parents (Table 1). State ABLs vary as to when parents’ notification is required. For example, Arizona requires “procedures for notifying … the alleged victim’s parents or guardian when a school official or employee becomes aware of the suspected incident of harassment, intimidation or bullying.”²⁶ In Massachusetts, however, the state does not require principals to notify parents of students involved in an act of bullying until after a determination that bullying has occurred.²⁷

Resources and Referrals

Six state laws require school districts to refer students involved in an incident of bullying to counseling or another mental health resource (Table 1). Meanwhile, nine states that do not require referrals nonetheless require the discussion of available resources with students involved in bullying (Figure 1).

Discussion

This research described the current status of state ABLs to build upon previous legal epidemiology research of state ABLs that described laws in effect through 2017.²⁸ As of October 2023, thirty-five jurisdictions amended existing ABLs since January 1, 2018, highlighting the need to maintain up-to-date legal data to inform future evaluations. This study provides current data on the exact provisions in each jurisdiction and defines in detail the selected components, providing a significant update on the current state of ABLs in the US.

The ABLs analyzed in this study defined bullying in a variety of ways. Many of the laws that were analyzed from jurisdictions differed from the CDC’s definition as most did not include the presence of a power imbalance in their definitions, or the characteristic that behavior is repeated or likely to be repeated (Supplement, eTable 2).

Cyberbullying was also included in many definitions of bullying in ABLs. While 32 states covered cyberbullying that takes places off campus, just 17 states covered both in-person bullying and cyberbullying that takes place off campus (Figure 1). This is an important distinction, as most cyberbullying may originate at home.²⁹

Implementing effective cyberbullying prevention efforts may be associated with challenges, such as the authority figure to moderate online behaviors not always being clearly defined.³⁰ Further, individuals engaging in cyberbullying behaviors receive more anonymity than those engaging in in-person bullying, making it sometimes difficult to identify individuals engaging in cyberbullying behaviors.³¹ Notwithstanding, the potential deleterious impacts of in-person bullying and cyberbullying make it vitally important to engage in its prevention. Research suggests that students who experience both cyber and in-person bullying are more likely to report both suicidal thoughts and attempts compared to those who report experiencing neither or only one type of bullying.³² ABLs and corresponding prevention efforts that address both in-person bullying and cyberbullying may have additional benefits for other health outcomes (e.g. teen dating violence, mental health).³³

A common component of ABLs was mandating training for school staff and students, which is critical considering most proven bullying prevention efforts are school based. While more jurisdictions (n=37) require bullying prevention training for adults who interact with students, more than half of jurisdictions (n=28) require trainings for students (Figure 1). This study was not able to assess the extent to which these trainings were funded. Unfunded mandates may place additional burdens on underfunded schools or divert money away from other programs aiming to create safe environments.³⁴ Additionally, this study was not able to assess the extent to which parents were engaged in anti-bullying training. Prior literature indicates active parental participation in bullying prevention and intervention can optimize the effectiveness of anti-bullying programs.³⁵ Future research could continue to explore funding associated with such policies and the extent to which parents were engaged.

Another common component of ABLs was establishing procedures for responding to bullying. Twenty-seven jurisdictions included teacher reporting requirements, and thirty-two jurisdictions required parental notification after a student has experienced bullying (Figure 1). These components have been associated with significant decreases in bullying behaviors in prior research.³⁶ While the requirement of parental notification may help some youth, it may have unintended negative outcomes for other youth.³⁷ Future research could explore the implications of implementation procedures of ABLs identified in this study including how they may impact groups disproportionately affected by bullying and other types of violence.

About half of policies (n=27) explicitly protected some groups at disproportionate risk; however, no state policy included military-connected youth or youth who are overweight or obese explicitly, two groups disproportionately impacted by bullying.³⁸ The enumeration of protected groups in ABLs has been associated with particular effectiveness of anti-bullying policies among those groups.³⁹ As such, the lack of protection for some groups of children may make it more challenging to enforce ABLs among some groups who experience increased burdens of bullying.⁴⁰ While prior studies found that having an ABL was associated with reduction in bullying at the population level, there is no evidence to date to examine whether these associations were consistent across groups who experience the highest rates of bullying.⁴¹ Future studies could use the findings of this legal epidemiology to examine the extent to which enumeration of specific protected groups in ABLs may impact health outcomes for these protected groups.

This legal epidemiology research can help inform understanding of additional implications of state ABLs. For example, most jurisdictions require “consequences” for engaging in bullying; however, research suggests that supportive policies, as opposed to punitive policies, are associated with reductions in bullying.⁴² Conversely, six jurisdictions require resources and referrals for students involved in bullying and an additional nine require discussing available resources with the students involved. These findings are consistent with a prior study of school district anti-bullying policies, which highlighted the dearth of content about providing support for students who have experienced bullying.⁴³ Punitive policies may increase inequities by disproportionately impacting groups at a disadvantage, including future outcomes like education and labor market participation.⁴⁴ Future research could explore how such consequences may have unintended impacts on school climate and other long-term outcomes. Research on the components of ABLs could help inform this next step.

There are several known limitations to this study. The dataset is not longitudinal, and coding criteria differed from other studies, so our results are not directly comparable to other legal datasets on ABLs. Westlaw does not include all laws from all US commonwealths and territories. Given this limitation and geopolitical differences across these jurisdictions, only DC was included in this study. Additionally, this study does not include school district-level bullying policies. The absence of a component from state law does not necessarily preclude school districts from implementing that component into their individual district bullying prevention policy; other state policies may also address key components of anti-bullying prevention. Finally, this policy analysis was unable to determine if there was funding provided along with state ABLs to schools for implementation of those laws. Provision of funding may significantly impact implementation, enforcement, and effectiveness of ABLs.

Conclusions

While all states and DC had an ABL as of October 2023, the components and requirements included in ABLs vary. This study provides updated insight into the landscape of ABLs in the US, building off prior research. Understanding the current makeup of ABLs allows for continued research into the effectiveness of ABL components and the relationship between ABLs and student safety.

Supplementary Material

Supplementary material. The supplementary material for this article can be found at http://doi.org/10.1017/jme.2025.10115.

Biographies

Dane White, J.D., is a Senior Public Health Law Fellow with the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) in the Division of Injury Prevention (DIP). Dane’s research focuses on legal mapping and policy evaluation efforts across areas of injury prevention. Dane received his JD from Boston University School of Law, Boston, MA.

Gabrielle F. Miller, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a Health Scientist with the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) in the Division of Injury Prevention (DIP). Gabrielle’s research interests include topics across NCIPC such as traumatic brain injury, suicide, and drug overdose. She holds a PhD and MS in Food and Resource Economics, as well as an MPH with a concentration in Public Health Practice, from the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.

Kyle Rosenblum, M.M.S., is a Health Policy Analyst with CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) in the Division of Injury Prevention (DIP). In this role, Kyle tracks and analyzes state and federal legislation, leads efforts to expand policy research and evaluation focused on suicide prevention and unintentional injuries, and supports partnerships and planning around suicide prevention and data analytics. Kyle received his Master of Management Science in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China and his Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Bachelor of Arts in Policy Studies from Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York.

Christopher Dunphy, Ph.D., is a Health Economist in the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC), Division of Injury Prevention (DIP). He holds a PhD in Applied Economics from The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. He has primarily conducted policy evaluation research across topics such as suicide prevention, overdose prevention, violence prevention, and COVID-19 nonpharmaceutical interventions. Dr. Dunphy’s research interests include the application of quasi-experimental research designs to evaluate interventions aimed at reducing injuries.

Riley Wagner, M.P.H., is a Health Scientist with CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) in the Division of Violence Prevention (DVP). Riley’s research in NCIPC focuses on online bullying, violence in online gaming communities, mental health, and restorative justice policies. Riley received her MPH in Health Education and Health Behavior from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.

Molly Merrill-Francis, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a Health Scientist with the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) in the Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) where her research focuses on how policies can be leveraged to equitably reduce multiple forms of injury and violence. She has a PhD from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD in Health Policy and Management and an MPH from University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC in Health Behavior.