The Patriot Post® · Some Students' Lives Matter

Student violence — both against teachers and against other students — seems to have increased in frequency and intensity in recent years. The school fights caught on video today are not anything close to what most of us grew up experiencing when we walked the halls of the middle and high schools we attended.

The clashes between teens today regularly consist of pummeling each other with closed-fist punches, and there is little hesitation to aim for the face and head with full-force kicks and stomps. On several occasions, the fight has only ended when someone of authority steps in, or at least one of the participants is unconscious — whichever comes first.

The media seemed to have an interest in this growing problem, as one such incident involving a 15-year-old out of Owasso, Oklahoma, caught their attention. The “non-binary” student, Nex Benedict, had been involved in a fight in the high school girl’s bathroom, was treated for her injuries at a local hospital, and sent home with minor cuts and bruises later that same day. However, the situation took a shocking turn when the teen collapsed the following day and was rushed back to the hospital, where she sadly passed away.

Before an autopsy could reveal the cause of death, the media jumped on the opportunity to imply that Nex’s death was due to a violent beating and that the attack was due to a wider anti-trans narrative. The motivation of the leftist anchors was clear: It gave them an opportunity to vilify the popular X account Libs of TikTok, which they would love to see shut down. It also allowed them to point fingers at legislators who oppose bills that would let kids secretly change their identity at school or allow minors to permanently alter their bodies through the medical treatments that fall under the deceptive and false category of “gender-affirming care.”

Of Nex’s death, one columnist wrote: “Nex Benedict, a sophomore at Owasso High School, was brutally beaten by other students earlier this month and died the following day. The incident has drawn national attention, with many attributing the violent act to a culture of transphobia they say is being stoked by state officials.”

It was eventually revealed that, tragically, Nex Benedict’s cause of death was self-inflicted. However, this new information did not cause the media to wonder whether other factors in Nex’s life may have led her to this decision, and it only intensified their resolve to sell the idea to every parent of a trans child that their kid could be next.

Even the president addressed this case while mentioning bullying, violence, and even suicide of trans kids. However, most leftists also singled out this group among the nation’s millions of students as being in need of additional support. This came from Biden himself (or his handlers) in a March 14 tweet: “We must recommit to our work to end discrimination and address the suicide crisis impacting too many nonbinary and transgender children.”

Though we would hope that the safety of all students matters to our country’s leaders and most prominent voices, it has become glaringly obvious that leftists’ obsession with this student was solely due to her trans identity. They revealed their priorities through their fixation on Nex’s story while failing to acknowledge the public accounts of countless kids who are facing the same challenges of school violence.

One particularly horrifying situation that has failed to land on the desk of Joy Reid, Rachel Maddow, or any of the anchors who have spent hours of airtime talking about Nex Benedict happened on March 8 in Spanish Lake, Missouri, between two female students from Hazelwood East High School. A nearby spectator on a cellphone stood by and recorded the girls facing off in the middle of the street, initially starting the conflict by yelling at each other. Things quickly escalated as one lunged at the other, and both girls started throwing punches. One of them flipped her opponent onto her back, climbed on top of her, grabbed the girl by the front of her shirt, and proceeded to viciously slam her head into the concrete at full force. The sickening sound of the victim’s skull hitting the pavement can be heard from several feet away. The attacker then stood up and engaged in a fight with others nearby while the identified victim of the brutal assault, 16-year-old Kaylee Gain, was left convulsing on the ground.

Gain has been in a coma since the incident, and her family is still unsure if she’ll ever regain consciousness or what her life will be like if she does.

Many other brutal encounters have not gained the attention they deserve, thanks to the “concerned” media.

Just one week after the appalling scene from Missouri, and the image of Kaylee Gain lying on the ground had branded itself into the minds of untold thousands of parents across the country, video of another vicious attack between two middle school girls emerged. As the New York Post reports, “Horrifying cellphone video shows a Southern California middle school girl being mercilessly thrashed by a female classmate during a fight said to be over a boy — as other students stand by and film the assault.”

Adding to the growing list, a group of boys in Eagle Ridge Middle School in Burnsville, Minnesota, surrounded a terrified classmate and can be seen punching, kicking, and beating him as he tries to defend himself against the mob.

Violence at the hands of other students, for any reason, has become a terrifying reality for students and teachers. Yet their stories and this surge in school violence aren’t getting the attention they deserve. If only the media were as interested in these anonymous victims as they were in Nex Benedict.

It seems as though this is yet another example of the government and the media picking winners and losers — deciding who is and who is not essential.