up here, boots on the ground where it needs to be and what's the action plan for failure to comply. that's my question. (applause). >> first of all, thank you for sharing that. i am capable of stepping in your shoes and appreciating how the unspeakable loss that you have just shared with us and i'm very, very grateful for you. regretablely, i have had too many conversations with parents, including some of the parents that were featured in the movie --. >> (inaudible) collaborative. it's like an underground railroad because nobody, no one has suffered like we have. the white house summit, both of them, i knew what was going to be said because we all, we are

each other's advocates. we are brothers and sisters in grief. we know what it feels like to have our children destroyed over things that we love and cherish about them. >> right. you referenced again what i referred to often as the appalling silence of good people that, as you recall, were dr. king's words from the birmingham jail. i've seen that all the time, people who are i think in their core good people who don't know what to do who tend to send the paradigm that boys will be boys and girls will be girls and we're trying to shift that paradigm. and that's why in okahenapen we have an accountability document that calls for --. >> (inaudible) with the idea,

like i said, there is not a state going that we don't have a parent that has a dead child. we are dragging everybody to the party because at what point do we say, we can't even say, kids are dying. hundreds and hundreds of children have died when this should be the best times of their life and our most sensitive, compassionate, empathetic, our children are not surviving their childhood. >> one thing i've learned in my line of work, and again i want to thank you for your remarks and your doggedness, civil rights is about persistence. you exude persistence. i have attempted to live a persistent life. the civil rights act of 1964 was first introduced in 1948, took a little while. the hate crimes of 2009 was first introduced in 96, took some time. we are not backing off this. i have spent as much time on

this issue as any issue and i speak as not simply -- i approach it not simply from the perspective of a civil rights lawyer, i approach it from the perspective of a parent of 3 and that informs my judgment as much as -- and my passion for this as much as anything. i can't promise, i don't know when we're going to be able to declare victory. i look at so many of the civil rights issues of our time and they have remained all too persistent but that doesn't mean we cannot continue to be dogged and i think we've seen successes. success didn't come soon enough for you and that is tragic and that's what motivates me and others to continue this work and so i hope we'll continue it together and i hope we'll be persistent. i hope we'll just demand it and as we continue to demand it, i think we'll make

progress. >> my heart is heavy for your experience. i can't imagine that this will make you feel any better, nor is it my intent that you do because i wouldn't, quite frankly, belittle your grief with new laws that can't bring your son back. four years ago when what happened to you happened, we didn't have a federal government that ensured that lgbt youth were going to be protected by the nation's civil rights laws, and now we do. seth's mother, nothing we could do to bring seth walsh back. nothing we could do could ensure that her pain or the pain that he and his family and his community suffered through the many years that he was

ridiculed and abused and beaten because he was a member of the lgbt community, could bring him back. but what we have in place there, what i want to believe with all that i am that we would have had in place at that school in sacramento if it happened now or any time in the last 3 year, 3 1/2 years, would have been not just an accountability document, but a promise made publicly that we post on our web sites so that when we leave and leaders leave, community can ensure that those resolutions become what they are supposed to be, which are contracts between two parties committed to change so that promises made are promises kept. and i assure you, as secretary

duncan has said, that we significance vigorously ensure, we absolutely will take all your federal money because that is what we have the ability to do and no federal dollars on education should be spent in places that are come play e come play sent or don't step up, as the first lady says, to ensure that fundamental fairness. >> thank you to tom and ruslyn and thank you for reminding us why we are all here. thank you. (applause). >> thank you so much, tom, and ruslyn and lieutenant governor, we appreciate it. let's move right into the second panel, the effects of

bullying on young people, we've already made that transition and their families. what should schools do. our next panel the focus on the effects of bullying on young people. our moderator is cheryl jennings, award-winning journalist and a pioneer in children's issues and women's rights. cheryl has won emmy awards on her work for caring on aging parents and a program aimed at teenager called straight talking teens. cheryl received an emmy nomination for her 6-part series on the children of kosovo, she was selected by the league of women voters as one of the six women who could be president. ladies and gentlemen, cheryl jennings.

>> i wanted to let you know that i got to see the bully movie yesterday with mr. caranza and 800 kids and melinda who was wearing her stop bullying tee shirt, so cute. it was an amazing experience and that video is in my head and the tears are in my heart for everybody that's lost a child. we're going to see a video right now that will set the tone of this panel. it will affect you. i saw it this morning so it would be appreciate in my head. you are going to meet the father who is featured in this video so i ask you to put down your electronic devices, your i pads and c phones please and pay attention to this and just be in the moment. if we can roll that dvd, please.

(inaudible) funny, most of the times bossy. she would be over at their house, guys, let's not watch tv, let's go do something because i only have two hours before i have to go home and i want to do something. >> jill started out her freshman year in high school as a cheerleader. she started cheering in the summertime so that when she got to her first day of freshman year, she was well known at the high school already and she was a flyer on the cheer team. always meant to fly. >> cheerleading wasn't just pompoms, it was standing on other shoulders and doing some pretty dramatic events but also being a flyer, the one on the

top of the pyramid, she was the one that was most visible, she was the one that became a star. in december, jill's behavior began to change a little bit. we noticed she began to pull away from the family. >> we worked very hard to let her do the things she wanted to do and keep it in a safe environment that we had some control over. and that was a difficult task and we worked long hours discussing it with her and what we felt was important and how she should behave. >> what went through my mind was initially the feeling that she was a teenager, i knew jill was very strong in hr personality and i knew that she was a good kid, a really good -- both my daughters are great

kids. she was just exploring her sort of self-identity and i saw it as a way for her to become independent so i supported it. but it frustrated me that she was pushing away from the family. >> the day jill died i walked into her bedroom to wake her up around 11:00 am and i walked in and the dogs jumped up on the bed and she said a sweet hello to me. and i said i was concerned because she was sleeping late and i thought she should get up and get started on her day, because it was sunday. >> i came home and saw jill had been, she was awake and she was talking but she wouldn't talk to me. i thought she was just mad because i cut her

curfew. >> we all proceeded to get settled and i began making dinner. i went to get her for dinner just shortly after 6:00 pm >> (inaudible) jill's door, it was atypical for it to be locked. i knocked on the door, went around -- nothing happened. so she went around to an adjoining bathroom and entered jill's room from the bathroom. >> and i found her hanging from her closet door, hunched over on the ground. >> that's when i heard polly scream. i came running, i knew something was wrong. and polly kept calling out, she hung herself, she hung herself. by that time polly was able to get to the door so i came through the front door of jill's room

and i was struggling to lift jill and at the same time manipulate the ligature off her neck. polly had grabbed a pair of scissors and she cut the ligature and brought her down. and i rested her down and i started cpr as well as i could or tried the best i could. and i remember looking at jill's face and realizing that her eyes were dilated and fixed, which means they weren't moving, so i knew that that wasn't good. >> and that was our nightmare.

>> a parent came to us, we'd known her personally, the whole family, for a long time. and she told me, she asked -- i thank her for the courage it took to come forward. she said, i don't know how to tell you this, but i think there's so much going on. >> she told us her son had come to her and told her there was a picture jill had sent to him in december naked in her body and it had been passed to another boy and then to another boy and put up on the internet. >> he told me he had these

pictures of jill and he was telling everybody that they were on his email account. so everybody went on the email account and they saw and they sent them to themselves just to have them just to, i don't know, just to --. >> we were very surprised when she told us about the picture. we had no idea. jill was very private, we couldn't understand why she would send something like that to a boy that she wasn't a boyfriend, it was just a friend. >> our first thought, this isn't true. we first thought this can't be true. then i thought, i need to at least know, i need to at least pursue this and bring it to the attention of the police department. >> we started talking a lot in, like, december. that's

when i asked for the pictures, i showed my friend, i didn't send it to him, i just showed it to him. like a month passed by, like a month and a half, no one knew about the picture and stuff. >> i honestly don't think anyone had the intention of embarrassing her. i think they just wanted, oh, check it out, top dog, i got so and so's naked, check it out. i would only think it was for popularity, not malicious intent. >> people were talking about how it went from one person to another and then went on the internet. >> one week prior to her committing suicide she was very, very much on her mind that she was troubled about the picture and how far it had gone and how many people were seeing the picture. she was texting friends that she was going to

commit suicide, she might as well commit suicide. >> i think i should have known the police would get involved but i didn't think about it until, you know, i got called in or 4 police officers standing there, like, bringing me into a conference room, interrogating me about it. i was just, it was one of the scariest things i've ever had to do. that's when it hit me, oh, my god, we're in trouble. >> later we heard from a police officer little pieces of information that this was -- actually happened and he had interviewed several kids at the high school who were in jill's class jill had known and compared stories and the information about the picture, the picture had gone to boy a, who sent to boy b who sent it to boy c who posted it on the internet. >> their reason for coming was possession of child pornography.

>> i'm telling this story primarily to get the idea axraus to other parents and kids that they really need to look past just a reputation, but need to look at their character. if any of those boys had just pressed delete, we wouldn't be having this conversation. >> other parents should be aware that this is happening and it's not -- it's all over the world, it's not just in our neighborhood. and talk with your children and teens about the subject and get educated on the subject yourself so you can learn how it handle it and really talk to your children about it can be fun, it can be dangerous, these new toys that

we have. >> wow. all right, i'd like to introduce the members of our panel today, rob is here, rob, could you come on up, rob neighbor, please join us. thank you so much for being here. (applause). >> assembly tom ammiano is here. (applause). >> and our state school chief tom torlichman is here and he is making his way to the podium. thank you all for being here.

rob, i want to start with you. you are a los gatos man. how old was jill when this started happening. >> it started happening when jill was about 14, it started in december, she turned 15 in february and then less than a month later, she passed. >> i can't even imagine what that was like for you all. you have another daughter so you just couldn't fold so how did you deal with all that? >> that's one of the greatest challenges. you know, the devastation that jill went through, the pain, doesn't stop. families will testify it continues. it hits the community and now we have to continue to pull ourselves up and help our other daughter and the challenges of raising and parenting another child. you know, we can't just pull up in

a shell. she has the right to have a childhood. she deserves to go to go to college. she deserves to be happy. we need to teach her and show and parent her to help her. >> this happened in 2009 and it made the news, it was just a horrible thing for everybody to experience. at what point did you all find the strength to pull yourselves out of what you were going through, your immediate grief, and do something about it, do something about -- speak up about it? >> it was a good year. i mean obviously parents can testify that first xwreer is just a blur of, you know, smoke and mirrors. nothing is real, ups or downs, but the seasons are not supposed to be in disorder. children do not pass before their parents. we began to see that the school, the high school in los gatos, led by a very strong,

great principled people, brought in an organization to help and after all i should preface in 2009 was a brutal year for los gatos high school, they lost two other students shortly before jill died. the school and principal brought in a counseling group called cassie, counseling and support services for youth, embedded counseling. and their job was to change the culture, very much what we've heard today, change the culture to get rid of the stigma of mental health and understanding that a lot of these kids feel anxiety and stress, they need someone to talk to. they just don't have the perspective that an adult has. >> one of the things that struck me was the boys were interviewed, they knew they were in trouble, but i didn't hear them say i'm sorry, i shouldn't have sent the picture on. >> the three boys were arrested and they complied with

a vuft stis program and part of that program was to write a letter to jill apologizing. as one could expect there is a spectrum of responses. some were very, very sincere. some were more concerned that they were caught. they were asked to be part of this video today, it was critical they were involved. i think what is interesting you catch the quote, while i'm the big dog, i got someone naked. i just want to point, that's the culture that was going on, that jill was a possession, a baseball card or a dollar bill. >> has that culture changed? >> yes, i think cassie is doing a great job at that, a great job, but what we need to do is keep -- jill would have

graduated this june. her class now is gone. what we need to do is keep this going. >> one of the things everyone is wrestling with, we want to know what we can do today, right now, when we go home. she was a good girl, you said she was a good girl, but she couldn't talk about this, she couldn't tell you what happened and her friends were being texted that she might commit suicide and they did nothing. so how did you move forward from that? how can we change that? >> again, that's this culture. it's the ability to talk to our parents, as my wife polly did such a great job on the video, you need to look and check your kids' browser. i understand you need this phone, i understand you need this computer, but i get the rights and privileges to check the browser. trust and verify. it's communication and throwing that communication far out ahead to bring this up and say, you know, we got to talk about these things. i hear about

sexting, i hear about kids committing suicide, we naed to talk about it. have you thought about hurting yourself? >> is that hard for parents to do, to say those words? >> absolutely. as a parent i would think i'm going to place the thought in my child's mind. studies show 50 percent of high school students have ideation of suicide. 50 percent. >> you have been an advocate now. as hard as this journey has been for you and your wife, it's been several years, how is the community responding to you all. >> it's amazing, 43 months, 3 days. we look at it, keeps going -- the community has been very responsive. very helpful. we have devised and we created a fund raiser called jill's right for hope. we've held this, it's a fund raiser for

cassie in memory of jill. the people in our community to be there and understand the cause to support cassie and how important it is to be there for kids, now not only are they in the high school for 4 years, they have just entered the feeder middle school for another 3 years. that's 7 years that kids will have free mental health care to change the culture. that's 21,000 lives. that also includes the faculty, think of the devastation that occurs to the faculty and the parents that's all provided to this change of culture. >> can we find this online? >> absolutely. cassiebear area.org. jill's ride for hope we just finished, we had a great ride the end of august,

the beginning of school, as you might imagine it's a brutal event. for us it's a great cause but a crappy --. >> you are right. thank you so much. assembly man tom ammiano has his own story about bullying but you are the author of what we've been talking about today. >> it sounds trite, but all politics being personal, you've probably heard that before many times. in the case of this bill, that does ring true. i was on the bridge board for many years and meeting after meeting parents would come, particularly of teenagers who had jumped, and it was heart breaking and poignant and that feeling of helplessness that we all have, very reminiscent of this story and of your story in terms of what the parents go through and the inaction. and

we finally were able to get a suicide deterrent plan and we're looking forward to getting that money authorized soon so that we can start construction. but as a kid in the 50's in newark, new jersey, i was, shall we say, a little fey, a little high strung, my mother used to say. i guess like a moth to the flame attracted all kinds of undesirable attention including from some of the teachers. we had a football/history teacher who just loved tormenting me, surrounding me with other members of the football team, some who i got to know a little better later, if you understand my drift. the point was there was no place to go. you felt so shamed when you were being bullied or when you were being exposed. i didn't want to talk to my parents, they were hard-working, i didn't want to burden them with that so i kept it inside for a very long time. there's a book out about

keeping things inside like your orientation or whatever and they say that when you have ghost wounds. you don't see anything but they are there from that kind of experience. so when i got to a place where i could actually do some kind of beneficial act around this issue of bullying, i listened closely to many of the horror stories that we heard and i thought, i can translate this into legislation. i think i know how to do that now. i did meet seth's mom and we decided that we would call it seth's law in honor of her, she had been in and around sacramento for a long time. so the legislation in and of itself, i don't think it's going to work miracles, but it is definitely on people's radar now and i think you hear it in the media more and more. the

reason we have a suicide barrier and the reason we are having legislation like this is because of the parents and the families because they are the ones that hurt the most and i would imagine part of the therapeutic thing, you've got to tell this story and telling it in the right place and the right time can be very effective. so seth's law does require that if you witness an act of bullying, that you must report it. >> is that for anybody? >> anyone, but particularly teachers. there is a -- sometimes we see things that aren't very pleasant and if you've ever taken it to muni, you know what i mean. your tendency is to turn away. i heard the word faggot on the play ground when i