Sexual Harassment, Racist Jokes, and Homophobic Slurs: When Bullies Target Identity Groups

Bullying is a trending headline that streams across media tickers and receives frequent attention in the national news. There are countless tragic stories linked to youth being singled out, such as the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard in October 1998 near Laramie, Wyoming. More recently, a Rutgers University student committed suicide in September 2010 after his roommate posted a video on the internet of him having sex with another man. Even more recently, in November 2011, 10-year-old Ashlynn Conner was found hanging in her closet, reportedly having committed suicide after she was teased by other girls for having a boy’s haircut. As these examples suggest, bullying has become a significant social problem, but much of this attention has been focused on the experiences of youth (Roscigno, Lopez, & Hodson, 2009). Though there has been significant attention to the harassment and bullying experiences of youth, only recently has bullying among adults in the workplace received attention in the academic literature and national press. Even further, while there has been increasing attention on workplace bullying, there has been limited attention to workplace bullying among different identity groups.