Welcome to iHeartRadio Communities, a public affairs special focusing on the biggest issues impacting you. This week, here's Ryan Gorman. Thanks for joining us here on I Hear Radio Communities. I'm Ryan Gorman, and we have a very important conversation for you today involving the issue of cyber bullying. Let me get right to it and bring in my guest. I'm joined now by Maureen Molak, co founder of the David's Legacy Foundation. You can learn more at David's Legacy
dot org. Maureen, thank you so much for taking a few minutes to come on the show. And I want to start with how this foundation came about. And to do that, we of course need to discuss your personal story involving your son, David Molak and the cyber bullying he experienced. Tell us about that. Yeah, well, first of all, thank you for having me. My son David, in two thousand January of two thousand and
sixteen died by suicide. And the months prior to David's death, he was the target of relentless and devastating cyber bullying that left him feeling helpless and hopeless, and we call it a cyber mob He was attacked on Instagram by a group of students and then a bunch of other people joined in. Some of those he knew, some he did not. They were targeting him for his personal who's making fun of his personal appearance, calling him a monkey, making
reference to Caesar from Plane into the Eighth told him he had aids. They were targeting his mental health, and they also threatened him, said put him in a body back, put him six feet under the body was David Molak,
I'd never come back to school. And this went on for quite some time, and that night that we found out about it, you know, David was just he was just devastated and he was crying, and you know, I sat on the floor with him, and that's when he showed me his phone and I saw a post after post after post of what they were saying to him, and I had n't take screenshots of it, and I took those to the school the next day and I was working with them and
to try to understand what was going on, and we felt like it was the best thing for us to do would be to move schools because there were some of the students that had been involved in it had a history. I was told they had a history there at the school, and we were fearful for his safety, and so we moved schools. In hindsight, we know that probably was not the best decision, but when you're going when you're in a crisis, you are making decisions that you feel like are the best at
that moment in time. And he was getting help. We were sending them to therapy. He was at a new school, but by the time he got to that new school, he was already so beat down. And we had found out that the cyber bullying it was not just that one Instagram event.
It had been going on for months that David had not told us because he was afraid we were going to take his phone away from him, and so we you know, we were trying to do everything that we possibly could to keep himself and protect him from what was happening to him, and it
was continuing. We know that cyber bullying doesn't require geographic proximity, and they continued to target him, and the night before he died by suicide, he had been included to a group me with a bunch of phone numbers that he did not know, that he did not have in his phone, and they said very insulting messages to him, and then they kicked him out of that group me and that's when he died by suicide. So the people who were responsible for the cyber bullying, did he know them? I know some of
them went to the school that he attended. But how did this start? Were you ever able to get a census to when this first bubbled up? We know that it first bubbled up over jealousy over a girlfriend and there was a small group of boys that just could not understand why in the world girl this girl was with my son and then it just started to be like a joke to all of them, and they continued to do it over months before
it just got to this big Instagram where it all blew up. That's when, you know, we we found out about it, and you know, then we moved schools. But then it didn't it went underground, right because it had been brought out into the light. The school knew about it. The students were being called in. David was leading school, so it was debting. There was a lot of buzz around what was happening to him, not just from the students at school, but the parents knew about it.
Parents found out about it there and um, but yeah, there were some people that just chimed in to that Instagram post that didn't even know David. You know that's how it works, right, I mean, it starts being shared. Yeah, it's a pylon. It starts being shared by people outside
of your circle if it's made public. So you had all of these people that David didn't even know, hundreds of people making comments anywhere from just really innocuous emoji laughing emojis to this is lol, this is so effing good, to the really serious comments of put him in a body bag, put let's put him six feet under, and so it just ran the gamut, and in David's mind, everybody, every the whole world hated him going through his mind, Yeah, it was humiliating, and he felt like he couldn't ever
get away from it, like he felt like it was gonna live out there forever and that was going to define him. We're joined by Maureen Molak, co founder of the David's Legacy Foundation. You can learn more at David's Legacy dot org. Did you ever connect with the parents of the kids who were responsible for these cyberbullying attacks and also the school the first school before you switch
schools. What did staff there have to say, because look, this is a situation that so many unfortunately families are going to be able to relate to who are listening to this across the country. Yes, we did. We went to the school and the school was really trying really hard to help us. And you know, back at that point, right, this is two
thousand and fifteen. Actually, when in October fifteen when we first went to the school, you know, we didn't have schools didn't have authority to explicit authority to investigate cyber bulling that occurred off campus, and so there they were a little hands were a little tied, right because they were trying to tread real lightly on what they could do legally in taking action in this particular situation because it did happen outside of school hours, and so you know, you
know, one of the comments that was made to me during that period of time from school administrators that we can keep him safe while he's here, but we can't protect him. And that for a parent to hear that, that was so frightening for me to hear that, and I was of course thinking the worst because I was hearing that there were some of these, Like I said, some of these kids had a history of some other behavior that had been very concerning to the school, and so, you know, we made
the best decision that we could at the time. I will say that there were a couple of kids that were involved in it that came to us afterwards and either apologized or came and made some excuse as to they weren't directing that towards David. They were directing that towards somebody else, but you know whatever. And then but what was really heartbreaking for us were the students that thought happening, did not make any comments, but were watching it all unfold.
And after David died, those kids and their parents came to us and told us that their kids had gone to their parents that night of the Instagram and had shown their parents their phone and said, look what they're doing to David, and their parents pulled their children. Don't get involved, right, it may turn on you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Their grief and their sorrow and the just the guilt that they felt for not doing more at that time to help David in his time of distress, and that will stay with
them forever. As this was happening before you were first made aware by David of the Instagram post, before it really blew up, were you able to tell that something was going on in his personal life. Yeah, that's a great question. Yes we did. We saw some signs. He was erratic, had erratic sweet patterns, he was starting to not want to go to school. His online life was changing. There would be times where he would be online all the time and there would be days we wouldn't even see him
with his phone in his hand, So that we did. There were some signs that we saw. And you know what's really difficult for parents that of course didn't grow up with technology is understanding all of the ins and outs of it. And um, well that's the thing. When I was growing up. Look, when all of us were growing up, there was bullying that took place, but this is just so different. There's never a break from the bullying for some of these kids who are the targets of attacks. Right,
that's exactly right. So you were saying there were some changes in terms of how David was handling his phone, and is social media presence being online anything else that stood out just for parents to hear so they can be aware of these potential signs perhaps in their own children who may be going through something similar. Yeah. So I always tell parents that you know, you're going to know your child better than anybody, and if you sense anything is wrong,
you need to go and get some help. Talk to somebody about it. You know. The first line of defense is to go to your pediatrician, ask them, talk to them about what you know. You're seeing some signs. You're not really sure what's going on. Because most of us as parents are not mental health providers, we don't have THEO you know, we don't really know. But all we do know is that something's just not right with our kids. And it's hard to know is this just typical teenage anc
yeah right, or is there really something going on with our kids? And getting medical advice is key to being able to keep our kids safe, especially in this world that we're living in today. With this, you know, the access to technology and all of the information that they have available to them
and all of the things that they are exposed to online. Our kids are growing up so much faster than past generations have, and so we have to rethink about the way that we parent today, and it means that we have to really be clued in on how our kids are feeling. I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by Maureen Molak, co founder of the David's Legacy Foundation. You can learn more about all the great work they're doing at David's Legacy dot org. I hate to ask this, but I think it is really important.
Leading up to the moment when David took his own life, you were now aware of the Instagram post. You're aware of what was happening. You tried to make some changes, including changing schools. Did you have a sense it was headed down that dark road or can you can you give us a little insight into that period? Yes? Absolutely, he David had two suicide attempts before his third and final attempt, so we knew that he was in a very dark place and we were trying, I mean, we were reaching out
to everybody, anybody that would help us. We hospitalized him, he was on medication. He had developed a serious case of just anxiety and was you know, depressed obviously, and um, yeah, we were doing everything that we possibly could do at the time. So, yes, we knew that he was in a really dark place. So unfortunately the worst happens. But then you took action talk to us about the creation of the David's Legacy Foundation
and how you're able. I find it so incredible people like you who are able to come out of such a horrific, tragic situation and just focus in on helping others and trying to make sure this doesn't happen to other people. Just talk a little bit about that, where that came from. Did you always feel like you were capable of this, or where'd you get the strength to do what you're doing now. I think the most active that I ever
was in the political realm was voting on a regular basis. But you know, after Data died, of course, it took me months before I could even think about anything. I mean, like I was just walking through this fog of I just kept thinking I was going to wake up, that they couldn't be real, Like this could not be real. It really didn't happen. And after you know, months of that and I finally kind of drifted out of that fog, my husband and my older sons were already going down
the path of working on legislation. They wanted to give parents tools that didn't exist that we needed when we were trying to get help through law. Enforcement through the school to be able to address cyber bullying. And we worked with our state Senator Jose Menendez here in San Antonio, Texas, and we started going down that path of creating policy and talking to any stakeholder that would be impacted by this type of legislation, and we wanted to know what needed,
where the holes were in, what was needed. My oldest son was in medical school at the time. He did a lot of research on what the various states laws were, and we took pieces from various laws and then we crafted our own provisions and we came up with a very comprehensive bill that addressed the education Code, the civil code, and the criminal code in Texas, the penal code, and we wanted to give parents, educators and law enforcement
schools that didn't exist, and that's what we did. We were successful. We passed David's law in our first session of working on it in two and seventeen, and that's an accomplishment. I will tell you that that doesn't always happen. Where legislation gets introduced and passed right away. That's incredible, and
now it doesn't. And my husband and I would take turns going to Austin every week, and we would have meetings set up and we met with every Senator office or the senator themselves, and state rep as many of the state reps as we possibly could. During that period of time, Texas only had their legislative session is only about five and a half months long every other year, so we did not have a lot of time to advocate for this. But as I mentioned, we had a lot of people behind us supporting us,
and legislators were behind us. They all knew it was the problem and they weren't really sure how we were going to deal with it. But you know, we came at we you know, we were able to to get some strong tools in place, and it really just created the framework for us to build on that, which we've done the last couple of sessions here in
Texas. And you know, one of the things that when we first started working on this in two thousand and seventeen, we knew that the social media companies they needed to have a responsibility in this, and unfortunately at that time, in this time that we live in today, they have bottomless pockets and they were lobbying behind closed doors against the provisions in David's law. That we had to pull out in order to be able to get it past unbelievable.
But yeah, but times have changed, and this year in twenty twenty three, we just closed out our session and we were able to help advocate for a bill here in Texas that actually holds social media companies. It gives them some responsibility to prevent mitigate harms to minors online. We're joined out by Maureen Molak, co founder of the David's Legacy Foundation, which you can find online
at David's Legacy dot org. So what are some of the provisions that you felt were really important to put into law in order to help protect kids from cyber bullying and help families and schools deal with this issue that I think is
much more prevalent than some people realize. Yeah, I think the most important thing that we wanted to make to make sure was that schools had the explicit authority to investigate and take action against cyber bullying if it occurred off campus but it materially impacted the school day or it affected a child's ability to be able
to learn or go to school. So that was probably the most important thing for us, because what we were hearing from superintendents in Texas was that when they would confront the parents of a alleged cyber bully, the parents would say, well, you don't have jurisdiction over that. That didn't happen on your school campus. And so with David's law now they can say, but yes,
we do. We have authority to be able to do that because we have a child whose mental health is impacted and they cannot learn and they cannot go to school, and so we can take action. And so it gives, you know, a lot of flexibility for schools on how they take that action, but they do have the authority to be able to do that.
It also required schools to notify the parents of the target of the cyberbullying as well as the alleged perpetrator within a period of time for three days for the for the target, and it's a reasonable amount of time for the perpetrator and also all of the bystandards of parents also need to understand needs to be notified of what occurred and what their child because we know that the impacts everybody who sees that, and so in a school commune unity, how that can affect
a student who sees it and felt and feels helpless, just like in the case of David, right, So you had those students who are watching it happen and didn't really did not know what to do, and the parents really didn't know what to do either in that or new with the appropriate response in that situation could be so and those are those are probably the most important things.
We increased to be the penalties in the criminal statute. And we also provided for a civil remedy which is where a parent can get an injunction against the cyber bully but also the cyber bullies parents, which requires the parents to make the child stop the behavior and then it gives in if they don't, then it gives a judge, you know, latitude to impose additional you know, consequences in these types of behavior. And we have found that that has
been very successful in Texas. It has opened up the door for us to create a new program called the Don't Bully MEW Project, which I say it's new, it's not really new. We started it right after David's law pass but it's grown so much. You know. We started off which is a few families that we're reaching out to us for support, and we had a small team of volunteer attorneys that we're taking on these cases. And as it grew and grew and grew, we saw the need to expand program, and
we've expanded. I have four legal aid providers across the state of Texas that take these cases on a pro bono basis for us, and they connect to
them with a volunteer attorneys. Most of the time our attorney volunteer attorneys are able to send a cease and desist letter to the parents of the perpetrators, and once they get that letter, that's when they realize what's going on and they make their child stop because they understand, oh my gosh, at this point, I may end up having to go to court, I may have to hire an attorney. That's going to mean money out of my pocket.
I am going to make my child stop, you know. And so we have found it's been extremely successful, like ninety nine percent of the time it's successful, and I don't know many programs that can really count that great of a success rate. So you have some incredible statistics on the website as to how this work that you've been doing has impacted cyberbullying in the state of Texas. Final question for you, for those listening who want to support the work
that you're doing, how can they do that? And I'm sure there are people all across the country who are listening and saying, what's going on in Texas, we need that in my state. How can they work to make that happen? And are you looking at doing this at a more national level,
at a federal level, Yes, absolutely we are. And last year I started working with some other nonprofits across the United States and we have been advocating for the Kids Online Safety Act, which is similar to the law that we passed here in Texas AH tob eighteen this past session, but it would actually, you know, it's federal legislation, so it would impact everybody across the United States. And you know, the bill has been filed in the
Senate. We are helping a Senator Blackburns has has been as our sponsor of that bill and he wants to have coast to pass before the kids return to school in the fall, which means we don't have a lot of time, and so we are asking all parents across the United States to write, call, ask for a meeting to their state senates to their excuse me to their
US Senators and ask them to co sponsor COSA. And if they have already co sponsored COSA, and thirty three senators already have signed onto the bill, which is amazing, then we ask them, you know, just to encourage their colleagues in the Senate, those who haven't joined in to join in. And and if you're in Washington, we're asking our Washington friends to contact Maria Cantwells let her office let them know that we want her to take a vote
on COSA. She is the committee chair for the Senate Commerce Committee, which is where this bill is. And if you're a Texan like me, to contact Ted Cruz in his office. And also he's the rank he is the ranking member in that committee, and we need to have that vote and we would like to see that sometime this month. We need to get the ball rolling on this bill. We don't have time to waste and real quick. People can also donate on your website to help make sure you're able to continue
to do the work you're doing right. Yes, absolutely, it helps us our work in our in the schools here in Texas, that helps us be able to expand across the United States. Our website is David's Legacy dot org. And if anybody has any questions, you know, they can follow up with us at info at David's Legacy dot org or another organization that I work
closely with, this fair Play for Kids dot org. And if they want some information on cost so they can go also to their website and link them directly to their senators and give them the tools that they need to be able to contact to them. Maureen Molak, co founder of the David's Legacy Foundation. Again, you can learn more and support the work the Foundation's doing at
David's Legacy dot org. Maureen, thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing your personal story in for all the extremely important work you're doing on the cyber bullying issue. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Ryan, I appreciate the opportunity. Take care all right, you as well. And that's going to do it for this edition of iHeartRadio Communities. I want to thank all of you for listening. I'm your host, Ryan Gorman. We'll talk to you again real soon