11-Year-Old Anti-Bullying Activist Gets State Representative’s Award Revoked

Marcel Neergaard is an 11-year-old boy from Oak Ridge Tennessee who is taking a giant stand to stop bullying. Tennessee State Representative John Ragan received an award for “reformer of the year” in April after introducing the Classroom Protection Act, or the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, earlier this year. Marcel felt that Ragan didn’t deserve the award and immediately started a petition to revoke the title. His petition quickly received 50,000 signatures and the award was revoked.
Marcel is so passionate about bullying because he was bullied himself only a year ago when he realized that he was gay. Marcel is only 11 but he realizes that his bullies didn’t even realize what they were doing at first. Eventually the bullying got much worse and Marcel’s parents took him out of school. Marcel felt that Ragan’s bill added to the idea of being gay as a taboo and that it would perpetuate the environment of fear in schools so he did something about it.

As Marcel’s brother Maitland said, “Marcel’s fearless.”

To read more click here.