Student-on-Student Conflicts & Bullying

Overview

When another student is making school unlivable — harassment, threats, a roommate situation gone wrong, an organization turned hostile — the school is the only referee available, and it often referees badly. Some schools overreact; more of them under-react, routing reports into offices where they quietly expire.

Two gaps drive these cases. Title IX reaches sex-based harassment, and much student-on-student cruelty is not sex-based — schools sometimes treat that as a reason to do nothing, even though their own conduct and anti-bullying policies still apply and federal law still reaches harassment based on race, national origin, disability, and other protected grounds. Then there are no-contact orders, which cut both ways: they are the workhorse protective tool, and the “mutual” order imposed on both students is often a soft sanction on the one who reported.

I help students on both sides of these conflicts — getting protective measures that work, contesting orders issued without basis, and pressing schools that ignore reports. Where a fraternity, team, or club is involved, the hazing and student organization discipline overlap changes both the school’s incentives and the available leverage.

What I can help with

• Getting no-contact orders and safety measures that actually function
• Contesting no-contact orders issued against you, including mutual orders
• Pressing the school to act on ignored reports of bullying and harassment
• Working roommate, housing, and organization conflicts to a livable outcome
• Sorting what belongs in Title IX from what does not
• Documenting the school’s response for any later claim

This is general information about the matters I handle and the law that applies to them. It is not legal advice about your situation, and the law in this area can change. For advice on your matter, start with the Full Read + Game Plan — your entire file read, straight answers, and exactly what to do next, in what order.