“Instigation” is the only justification available for mitigation. Do you think she should be charged with assault and battery?

Yes, indeed. Quantify your position, please. How much responsibility for the physical altercation does each party bear?

I would say that the boy is primarily responsible for the altercation. Without his egregious, deplorable, and criminal harassment instigating her response, there would have been no altercation. That translates to 51% to 100% of the blame.

The school bears secondary responsibility. The school acts in loco parentis. They are obligated to adequately supervise and protect their students. Here, they put harasser and victim, unsupervised, in close proximity to eachother. That is completely unreasonable. That translates to 0% to 49% of the blame.

The girl’s responsibility is less than that of the school. She was suffering undue sexual harassment. She reasonably asked for relief from that harassment, and her requests were refused by the school charged with providing that relief. She was under duress at the time of the altercation. With those factors, full and sole responsibility cannot be assigned to her. That translates to 0% to 24% of the blame.

Do you believe she bears more than 24% of the blame for the physical altercation? Do you believe she bears more responsibility than either the boy or the school? Quantify your position, please. I want to know exactly how much blame you are assigning to the victim.

Indeed. Let us quantify that:

• What percentage of the total blame for the physical altercation should be assigned to the harasser?
• What percentage of the total blame for the physical altercation should be assigned to the school?
• What percentage of the total blame for the physical altercation should be assigned to the girl?

Intriguing. Please explain why “instigation” does not apply here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words

There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or “fighting” words – those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.

— Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 1942[1]

His works and words certainly meet the court’s criteria. He wasn’t just generally offensive; he personalized his lewd, obscene, and libelous harassment directly toward his chosen victim.

Indeed. Why would we not blame the school and the harasser for creating this situation?

Stop moving the goal posts. She was punished for having been victimized. By the time she was punished, they knew she was the victim. They knew she was the victim, they had evidence that she was the victim, and they punished her anyway. The problem here is the egregious way the school has handled the entire issue, not the outstanding criminal investigation into the boy.

There. They didn’t have any proof prior to the fight.

You do need conclusive proof of the accused’s guilt to punish the accused. You do not need any evidence whatsoever to start protecting the accuser from the accused. The school could and should have either kept her off the bus, or provided adequate supervision of the two. They failed to properly supervise the two, directly leading to the fight. They forced harasser and accuser together without supervision. The fight was foreseeable; the school is responsible for it.

Second. How do you get those photos and videos (assuming it wasn’t a bus security camera which wouldn’t be able to make out the photos anyway)? You need a warrant to unlock student’s phones.

It was, indeed, a bus security camera. And you don’t need a warrant when the photographer gives you their photo. The school was in possession of this evidence prior to the disciplinary hearing where they unjustly punished her. They had this evidence, yet they punished the victim anyway.

Then you concede that he instigated the attack. You don’t need to continue blaming the victim’s violent response, because responsibility for those acts falls on the harassing instigator.

Perhaps you should stop blaming the victim.

It has more than one meaning, though.

In this context, you’re actually going to argue that you intended something other than the legal meaning?

Me:

The person who throws the punch is not always the person legally responsible for the punch being thrown. When his unreasonable actions rise to the level of “instigation” or “incitement”, he becomes responsible for the actions she takes against him.

You:

So the way she tried to incite others to commit felony assault?

I was being charitable when I suggested you were simply ignorant of the meaning.

You seem overly hostile though.

I am reasonably confident I am arguing with an unreasonable, intellectually dishonest person. I do not believe you are arguing logically, rationally, or in good faith. My hostility arises from that belief.

The word I used in the parent comment was “instigation”.

We’re at the point of the conversation where you recognize her actions in these specific circumstances were at least understandable, if not reasonable and rational. We’re at the point of the conversation where you acknowledge she was the victim. We’re at the point in the conversation where you acknowledge the school failed to properly supervise her and her harasser on the bus, and erred greatly in their disciplinary action.

We’re at the point where you point out that violence is not acceptable, but that given his actions and the multiple failures of the school pushed her to do something that she would not normally do, and should not have been punished for.

We’re at the point in the conversation where you recognize you have been improperly assigning excessive blame to the victim, and decide to delete, or at least amend your previous arguments to portray yourself as a reasonable person.

I think there’s a lot of people missing the order of events here.

If you only read the OP article, I think that’s a reasonable conclusion.

But the AI nudes were an accusation and there was no proof at that time.

Read the linked AP article. They had many complaints/accusations, and corroborating photos and video from the bus available to them before they decided to suspend her, and before they sent her to the alternative school.

Ah, I see what you’re saying. The school had to take some sort of action quickly after the fight, and you believe they didn’t have the full evidence available at that time. You’re arguing that they did the best they could with the information they had at the time.

Did you happen to click any of the links in the article?

She just felt like she was victimized multiple times — by the pictures and by the school not believing her and by them putting her on a bus and then expelling her for her actions,” her father, Joseph Daniels, said in an interview.

From that link:

When the girl stepped onto the bus 15 minutes later, the boy was showing the AI-generated images to a friend. Fake nude images of her friends were visible on the boy’s phone, the girl said, a claim backed up by a photo taken on the bus. A video from the school bus showed at least a half-dozen students circulating the images, said Martin, the superintendent, at a school board meeting.

The preponderance of the evidence available to the school at the time she was suspended was in her favor, and against the boy. Yet they chose to take action against her rather than him.

Does any of that win me a little more goodwill on the timeline?

I would note that the school had fucked up before the physical altercation, by putting her and her harasser in close proximity on the same bus, effectively unsupervised, after they were aware of the complaints she made against him.

victim of her assault can still press charges.

He can be charged with assault and battery, due to his instigation of the physical altercation.

It is not other people’s responsibility for how you react to how you feel

That is true only as a general condition, not an absolute one. There are certainly exceptions. “Instigation” is one such exception.

Not quite. You shortened the phrase. You dropped five critical words that were present in the original phrase:

and any level of force necessary to end that harm

Further, you’re dishonestly relying on a colloquial definition of “harm”, rather than a legal one. “Rejection” does not qualify.

Yeah, you used the word “incite”, but it doesn’t actually mean what you seem to think it means.

What?

You do understand that she’s not being charged with that, right?

What I am saying is that if I deliberately try to piss you off enough for you to take a swing at me, I become criminally responsible for the violent acts you take against me. That’s “instigation”.

“Instigation” is why she isn’t being charged with assault and battery. She’s not responsible for the violence on the bus. He is.

They know she started a fight though.

It was his egregious, deplorable, and criminal acts of harassment against her that caused her to engage in a physical altercation that she otherwise would not have engaged. That makes him responsible for the assault, not her.

I think you need to read a little more on the concepts like “instigation” and “incitement”. The actor is not always the person legally or criminally responsible for their actions.

I would remind you that she isn’t being charged: the state does not think she committed battery.

I’m going to have to agree with the other person; I don’t think this qualifies as “self defense”. HOWEVER, the egregiousness of his harassment does seem to rise to the level of “instigation”, making him criminally responsible for the physical altercation. She’s not being charged with assault and battery, but someone is responsible. He instigated that crime; he should be charged with it.