‘Trump Effect’ Increases Bullying and Harassment in Schools

By Doug Cunningham

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The three million members of the National Education Association are publicizing the “Trump Effect” on students, schools and communities—the harmful effect on students they say is happening due to the inflammatory rhetoric from the GOP presidential candidate.

NEA Political Director Carrie Pugh says those effects include an increase in bullying and harassing behavior that’s mirroring Trump’s words and actions on the campaign trail.

That includes Montana students wearing white supremacist Trump t-shirts to school.

“Two students showed up to a pep rally at a school featuring Trump-themed shirts with the words “White Pride” and “White Power” and featuring a confederate flag. Educators all across the country, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, they’re re-telling their stories of anxious students—both immigrants, citizens—who really fear that their families will be deported if Trump is elected,” said Pugh.

Pugh says the NEA has a powerful political effort underway in battleground to highlight this negative “Trump Effect” on students.

“Our members are out campaigning in battleground states, volunteering their time on the weekends and the evenings to phone bank other members and to volunteer with the campaign. And we’re doubling down in a number of key battleground states—Iowa, Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and North Carolina.

We couldn’t have a clearer contrast between these two candidates. I mean, Donald Trump continues to show on a daily basis how temperamentally unfit and unqualified he is to be president while Secretary Clinton is driving a message of hope and how we are better when we come together as a nation.”