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June 3, 2023 • 29 mins
Ryan Gorman hosts an iHeartRadio nationwide special featuring Maurine Molak, Co-Founder of the David's Legacy Foundation. Maurine Molak discusses the loss of her 16-year-old son David to suicide following a continual cyber-bullying attack against him by fellow high school students. She also breaks down the foundation's work in changing laws to protect kids from cyberbullying better and provide the right resources and support for parents and schools to deal with the problem.
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(00:00):
Welcome to iHeartRadio Communities, a publicaffairs special focusing on the biggest issues impacting
you. This week, here's RyanGorman. Thanks for joining us here on
I Hear Radio Communities. I'm RyanGorman, and we have a very important
conversation for you today involving the issueof cyber bullying. Let me get right
to it and bring in my guest. I'm joined now by Maureen Molak,

(00:24):
co founder of the David's Legacy Foundation. You can learn more at David's Legacy
dot org. Maureen, thank youso much for taking a few minutes to
come on the show. And Iwant 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 Molakand the cyber bullying he experienced. Tell

(00:46):
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 themonths prior to David's death, he was
the target of relentless and devastating cyberbullying that left him feeling helpless and hopeless,

(01:12):
and we call it a cyber mobHe was attacked on Instagram by a
group of students and then a bunchof other people joined in. Some of
those he knew, some he didnot. They were targeting him for his
personal who's making fun of his personalappearance, calling him a monkey, making

(01:38):
reference to Caesar from Plane into theEighth told him he had aids. They
were targeting his mental health, andthey also threatened him, said put him
in a body back, put himsix feet under the body was David Molak,
I'd never come back to school.And this went on for quite some

(02:01):
time, and that night that wefound out about it, you know,
David was just he was just devastatedand 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 postafter post after post of what they were

(02:24):
saying to him, and I hadn't take screenshots of it, and I
took those to the school the nextday and I was working with them and
to try to understand what was goingon, and we felt like it was
the best thing for us to dowould be to move schools because there were

(02:45):
some of the students that had beeninvolved in it had a history. I
was told they had a history thereat the school, and we were fearful
for his safety, and so wemoved schools. In hindsight, we know
that probably was not the best decision, but when you're going when you're in

(03:07):
a crisis, you are making decisionsthat you feel like are the best at
that moment in time. And hewas getting help. We were sending them
to therapy. He was at anew school, but by the time he
got to that new school, hewas already so beat down. And we
had found out that the cyber bullyingit was not just that one Instagram event.

(03:34):
It had been going on for monthsthat David had not told us because
he was afraid we were going totake his phone away from him, and
so we you know, we weretrying to do everything that we possibly could
to keep himself and protect him fromwhat was happening to him, and it
was continuing. We know that cyberbullying doesn't require geographic proximity, and they

(04:00):
continued to target him, and thenight before he died by suicide, he
had been included to a group mewith a bunch of phone numbers that he
did not know, that he didnot 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 diedby suicide. So the people who were

(04:28):
responsible for the cyber bullying, didhe know them? I know some of
them went to the school that heattended. But how did this start?
Were you ever able to get acensus to when this first bubbled up?
We know that it first bubbled upover jealousy over a girlfriend and there was

(04:54):
a small group of boys that justcould not understand why in the world girl
this girl was with my son andthen it just started to be like a
joke to all of them, andthey continued to do it over months before

(05:15):
it just got to this big Instagramwhere it all blew up. That's when,
you know, we we found outabout it, and you know,
then we moved schools. But thenit didn't it went underground, right because
it had been brought out into thelight. The school knew about it.

(05:38):
The students were being called in.David was leading school, so it was
debting. There was a lot ofbuzz 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 andum, but yeah, there were some

(06:00):
people that just chimed in to thatInstagram 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, hundredsof people making comments anywhere from just really

(06:26):
innocuous emoji laughing emojis to this islol, this is so effing good,
to the really serious comments of puthim in a body bag, put let's
put him six feet under, andso it just ran the gamut, and
in David's mind, everybody, everythe whole world hated him going through his

(06:51):
mind, Yeah, it was humiliating, and he felt like he couldn't ever
get away from it, like hefelt like it was gonna live out there
forever and that was going to definehim. We're joined by Maureen Molak,
co founder of the David's Legacy Foundation. You can learn more at David's Legacy

(07:14):
dot org. Did you ever connectwith the parents of the kids who were
responsible for these cyberbullying attacks and alsothe school the first school before you switch
schools. What did staff there haveto say, because look, this is
a situation that so many unfortunately familiesare going to be able to relate to

(07:35):
who are listening to this across thecountry. Yes, we did. We
went to the school and the schoolwas really trying really hard to help us.
And you know, back at thatpoint, right, this is two
thousand and fifteen. Actually, whenin October fifteen when we first went to

(07:55):
the school, you know, wedidn't have schools didn't have authority to explicit
authority to investigate cyber bulling that occurredoff campus, and so there they were
a little hands were a little tied, right because they were trying to tread

(08:18):
real lightly on what they could dolegally in taking action in this particular situation
because it did happen outside of schoolhours, and so you know, you
know, one of the comments thatwas made to me during that period of
time from school administrators that we cankeep him safe while he's here, but

(08:41):
we can't protect him. And thatfor a parent to hear that, that
was so frightening for me to hearthat, and I was of course thinking
the worst because I was hearing thatthere were some of these, Like I
said, some of these kids hada history of some other behavior that had

(09:05):
been very concerning to the school,and so, you know, we made
the best decision that we could atthe time. I will say that there
were a couple of kids that wereinvolved in it that came to us afterwards
and either apologized or came and madesome excuse as to they weren't directing that

(09:33):
towards David. They were directing thattowards somebody else, but you know whatever.
And then but what was really heartbreakingfor us were the students that thought
happening, did not make any comments, but were watching it all unfold.

(09:54):
And after David died, those kidsand their parents came to us and told
us that their kids had gone totheir parents that night of the Instagram and
had shown their parents their phone andsaid, look what they're doing to David,
and their parents pulled their children.Don't get involved, right, it

(10:18):
may turn on you. Yeah,yeah, yeah. Their grief and their
sorrow and the just the guilt thatthey felt for not doing more at that
time to help David in his timeof distress, and that will stay with
them forever. As this was happeningbefore you were first made aware by David

(10:45):
of the Instagram post, before itreally blew up, were you able to
tell that something was going on inhis personal life. Yeah, that's a
great question. Yes we did.We saw some signs. He was erratic,
had erratic sweet patterns, he wasstarting to not want to go to

(11:09):
school. His online life was changing. There would be times where he would
be online all the time and therewould 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 youknow what's really difficult for parents that of
course didn't grow up with technology isunderstanding all of the ins and outs of

(11:35):
it. And um, well that'sthe thing. When I was growing up.
Look, when all of us weregrowing up, there was bullying that
took place, but this is justso different. There's never a break from
the bullying for some of these kidswho are the targets of attacks. Right,
that's exactly right. So you weresaying there were some changes in terms

(11:58):
of how David was handling his phone, and is social media presence being online
anything else that stood out just forparents to hear so they can be aware
of these potential signs perhaps in theirown children who may be going through something
similar. Yeah. So I alwaystell parents that you know, you're going

(12:18):
to know your child better than anybody, and if you sense anything is wrong,
you need to go and get somehelp. Talk to somebody about it.
You know. The first line ofdefense is to go to your pediatrician,
ask them, talk to them aboutwhat you know. You're seeing some
signs. You're not really sure what'sgoing on. Because most of us as

(12:39):
parents are not mental health providers,we don't have THEO you know, we
don't really know. But all wedo know is that something's just not right
with our kids. And it's hardto know is this just typical teenage anc
yeah right, or is there reallysomething going on with our kids? And
getting medical advice is key to beingable to keep our kids safe, especially

(13:05):
in this world that we're living intoday. With this, you know,
the access to technology and all ofthe information that they have available to them
and all of the things that theyare exposed to online. Our kids are
growing up so much faster than pastgenerations have, and so we have to

(13:26):
rethink about the way that we parenttoday, and it means that we have
to really be clued in on howour kids are feeling. I'm Ryan Gorman,
joined by Maureen Molak, co founderof the David's Legacy Foundation. You
can learn more about all the greatwork they're doing at David's Legacy dot org.

(13:48):
I hate to ask this, butI think it is really important.
Leading up to the moment when Davidtook his own life, you were now
aware of the Instagram post. You'reaware of what was happening. You tried
to make some changes, including changingschools. Did you have a sense it
was headed down that dark road orcan you can you give us a little

(14:11):
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

(14:35):
to everybody, anybody that would helpus. We hospitalized him, he was
on medication. He had developed aserious case of just anxiety and was you
know, depressed obviously, and um, yeah, we were doing everything that

(15:01):
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 usabout the creation of the David's Legacy Foundation

(15:24):
and how you're able. I findit so incredible people like you who are
able to come out of such ahorrific, tragic situation and just focus in
on helping others and trying to makesure 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 ofthis, or where'd you get the strength

(15:48):
to do what you're doing now.I think the most active that I ever
was in the political realm was votingon 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

(16:10):
fog of I just kept thinking Iwas going to wake up, that they
couldn't be real, Like this couldnot be real. It really didn't happen.
And after you know, months ofthat and I finally kind of drifted
out of that fog, my husbandand my older sons were already going down

(16:36):
the path of working on legislation.They wanted to give parents tools that didn't
exist that we needed when we weretrying to get help through law. Enforcement
through the school to be able toaddress cyber bullying. And we worked with
our state Senator Jose Menendez here inSan Antonio, Texas, and we started

(17:03):
going down that path of creating policyand 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, whatwas needed. My oldest son was in
medical school at the time. Hedid a lot of research on what the

(17:26):
various states laws were, and wetook pieces from various laws and then we
crafted our own provisions and we cameup with a very comprehensive bill that addressed
the education Code, the civil code, and the criminal code in Texas,

(17:48):
the penal code, and we wantedto give parents, educators and law enforcement
schools that didn't exist, and that'swhat we did. We were successful.
We passed David's law in our firstsession of working on it in two and
seventeen, and that's an accomplishment.I will tell you that that doesn't always

(18:11):
happen. Where legislation gets introduced andpassed right away. That's incredible, and
now it doesn't. And my husbandand I would take turns going to Austin
every week, and we would havemeetings set up and we met with every
Senator office or the senator themselves,and state rep as many of the state

(18:33):
reps as we possibly could. Duringthat period of time, Texas only had
their legislative session is only about fiveand a half months long every other year,
so we did not have a lotof time to advocate for this.
But as I mentioned, we hada lot of people behind us supporting us,

(18:56):
and legislators were behind us. Theyall knew it was the problem and
they weren't really sure how we weregoing to deal with it. But you
know, we came at we youknow, we were able to to get
some strong tools in place, andit really just created the framework for us

(19:17):
to build on that, which we'vedone the last couple of sessions here in
Texas. And you know, oneof the things that when we first started
working on this in two thousand andseventeen, we knew that the social media
companies they needed to have a responsibilityin this, and unfortunately at that time,

(19:45):
in this time that we live intoday, they have bottomless pockets and
they were lobbying behind closed doors againstthe provisions in David's law. That we
had to pull out in order tobe able to get it past unbelievable.

(20:06):
But yeah, but times have changed, and this year in twenty twenty three,
we just closed out our session andwe were able to help advocate for
a bill here in Texas that actuallyholds social media companies. It gives them

(20:27):
some responsibility to prevent mitigate harms tominors online. We're joined out by Maureen
Molak, co founder of the David'sLegacy Foundation, which you can find online
at David's Legacy dot org. Sowhat are some of the provisions that you

(20:48):
felt were really important to put intolaw in order to help protect kids from
cyber bullying and help families and schoolsdeal 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 tomake sure was that schools had the explicit

(21:10):
authority to investigate and take action againstcyber bullying if it occurred off campus but
it materially impacted the school day orit 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 werehearing from superintendents in Texas was that when

(21:34):
they would confront the parents of aalleged cyber bully, the parents would say,
well, you don't have jurisdiction overthat. That didn't happen on your
school campus. And so with David'slaw now they can say, but yes,
we do. We have authority tobe able to do that because we

(21:56):
have a child whose mental health isimpacted and they cannot learn and they cannot
go to school, and so wecan take action. And so it gives,
you know, a lot of flexibilityfor schools on how they take that
action, but they do have theauthority to be able to do that.

(22:19):
It also required schools to notify theparents of the target of the cyberbullying as
well as the alleged perpetrator within aperiod of time for three days for the
for the target, and it's areasonable amount of time for the perpetrator and

(22:45):
also all of the bystandards of parentsalso need to understand needs to be notified
of what occurred and what their childbecause we know that the impacts everybody who
sees that, and so in aschool commune unity, how that can affect
a student who sees it and feltand feels helpless, just like in the

(23:07):
case of David, right, Soyou had those students who are watching it
happen and didn't really did not knowwhat to do, and the parents really
didn't know what to do either inthat or new with the appropriate response in
that situation could be so and thoseare those are probably the most important things.
We increased to be the penalties inthe criminal statute. And we also

(23:36):
provided for a civil remedy which iswhere a parent can get an injunction against
the cyber bully but also the cyberbullies parents, which requires the parents to
make the child stop the behavior andthen it gives in if they don't,

(23:57):
then it gives a judge, youknow, latitude to impose additional you know,
consequences in these types of behavior.And we have found that that has
been very successful in Texas. Ithas opened up the door for us to
create a new program called the Don'tBully MEW Project, which I say it's

(24:21):
new, it's not really new.We started it right after David's law pass
but it's grown so much. Youknow. We started off which is a
few families that we're reaching out tous for support, and we had a
small team of volunteer attorneys that we'retaking on these cases. And as it
grew and grew and grew, wesaw the need to expand program, and

(24:45):
we've expanded. I have four legalaid providers across the state of Texas that
take these cases on a pro bonobasis for us, and they connect to
them with a volunteer attorneys. Mostof the time our attorney volunteer attorneys are
able to send a cease and desistletter to the parents of the perpetrators,

(25:07):
and once they get that letter,that's when they realize what's going on and
they make their child stop because theyunderstand, oh my gosh, at this
point, I may end up havingto go to court, I may have
to hire an attorney. That's goingto mean money out of my pocket.
I am going to make my childstop, you know. And so we
have found it's been extremely successful,like ninety nine percent of the time it's

(25:30):
successful, and I don't know manyprograms that can really count that great of
a success rate. So you havesome incredible statistics on the website as to
how this work that you've been doinghas impacted cyberbullying in the state of Texas.
Final question for you, for thoselistening who want to support the work

(25:51):
that you're doing, how can theydo that? And I'm sure there are
people all across the country who arelistening and saying, what's going on in
Texas, we need that in mystate. How can they work to make
that happen? And are you lookingat doing this at a more national level,
at a federal level, Yes,absolutely we are. And last year

(26:12):
I started working with some other nonprofitsacross 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 tobeighteen this past session, but it would

(26:34):
actually, you know, it's federallegislation, so it would impact everybody across
the United States. And you know, the bill has been filed in the
Senate. We are helping a SenatorBlackburns has has been as our sponsor of
that bill and he wants to havecoast to pass before the kids return to

(26:59):
school in the fall, which meanswe don't have a lot of time,
and so we are asking all parentsacross the United States to write, call,
ask for a meeting to their statesenates to their excuse me to their
US Senators and ask them to cosponsor COSA. And if they have already

(27:19):
co sponsored COSA, and thirty threesenators already have signed onto the bill,
which is amazing, then we askthem, you know, just to encourage
their colleagues in the Senate, thosewho haven't joined in to join in.
And and if you're in Washington,we're asking our Washington friends to contact Maria

(27:45):
Cantwells let her office let them knowthat we want her to take a vote
on COSA. She is the committeechair for the Senate Commerce Committee, which
is where this bill is. Andif you're a Texan like me, to
contact Ted Cruz in his office.And also he's the rank he is the

(28:10):
ranking member in that committee, andwe need to have that vote and we
would like to see that sometime thismonth. We need to get the ball
rolling on this bill. We don'thave time to waste and real quick.
People can also donate on your websiteto help make sure you're able to continue
to do the work you're doing right. Yes, absolutely, it helps us

(28:33):
our work in our in the schoolshere 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 Legacydot org or another organization that I work

(28:53):
closely with, this fair Play forKids dot org. And if they want
some information on cost so they cango also to their website and link them
directly to their senators and give themthe tools that they need to be able
to contact to them. Maureen Molak, co founder of the David's Legacy Foundation.

(29:14):
Again, you can learn more andsupport 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 infor all the extremely important work you're doing
on the cyber bullying issue. Wereally appreciate it. Thank you, Ryan,
I appreciate the opportunity. Take careall right, you as well.
And that's going to do it forthis edition of iHeartRadio Communities. I want

(29:37):
to thank all of you for listening. I'm your host, Ryan Gorman.
We'll talk to you again real soon
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