High school senior created Facebook compliments page to challenge bullying, spread positivityWe hear a lot about cyberbullying, but some students are using social media to encourage others as oppose to bringing them down.Wilson To, a high school senior in Nevada is one of those students. He launched a page called “Atech Compliments” so students could leave anonymous complimentarity messages about members of the student body.For the first year Wilson ran the page without revealing his identity. "A lot of quiet individuals don't think much of what they do, but when they get compliments for things they didn't realize about themselves, it helps to build self-esteem," he explained to The Huffington Post. The project has since become such a hit that Wilson taught administrators how to take over after graduation.
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Rhode Island is now the 13th state to include gender-identity and expression in its hate crime laws.
The Transgender Hate Crimes Monitoring Bill (S2488) was introduced to the Rhode Island General Assembly on February 16. It passed the Rhode Island House on May 24, and Governor Lincoln D Chafee signed the bill on May 30.
The Transgender Hate Crimes Monitoring Bill assists in the research and safety of Rhode Island’s transgender population. In addition, because the bill addresses all hate crimes committed from gender identity or expression bias, victims of all gender identities are protected under this statute.
Specifically, the bill adds gender identity and expression to Rhode Island’s hate crimes reporting statute, which already specified race, religion, gender, disability and sexual orientation as motivating prejudices.
This now requires Rhode Island State Police to not only report hate crimes based on gender identity and expression, but to also undergo mandatory training regarding the handling of gender identity and expression related hate crimes.