By Carolyn D. Gorman
In February 2026, a jury in Plano, Texas, returned a verdict in a bullying case involving an adult woman, Summer Smith, and a teenager, Asher Vann. The court ordered Smith and her attorney to pay Vann nearly $3.2 million for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Ironically, Vann had been accused of bullying in the original matter.
The case arose from an incident five years earlier. In 2021, Vann hosted a sleepover with four friends to celebrate his 14th birthday. The boys played a prank: after one fell asleep, another urinated into a bottle of Gatorade, and the group then woke him and urged him to take a sip. One of the boys filmed his reaction. (Vann was present but not alleged to have initiated the prank or directly urged the victim to drink.) It was quintessentially stupid teenage behavior—the kind that, in an earlier era, produced the “Jackass” MTV celebrities.
Two weeks after the sleepover, the pranked boy—Smith’s son—argued with the boy who had filmed him, who then circulated the video among classmates. When Smith learned of it, she launched a public campaign against Vann, sharing the video on social media and accusing him of racially motivated abuse against her son. The story went viral. Protesters gathered outside Vann’s home and threw rocks through the windows. The school suspended him for “cyberbullying,” even though he had not filmed or shared the video. Years of death threats and social ostracism followed. (Why Smith did not blame the boy who filmed and dispersed the video is not entirely clear; apparently, she focused on Vann as the host of the party.)
Smith’s accusations against Vann lacked foundation. Neither school officials nor police investigators found evidence that the prank was racially motivated. Smith’s own son told administrators that he was “not all that upset” by it and later apologized to Vann for the uproar his mother had caused. A racially diverse jury ultimately rejected her public crusade.
The Plano case exemplifies the failures of the “anti-bullying” movement, which has expanded rapidly over the past quarter century. What began as a commendable effort to protect vulnerable young people has stretched the definition of bullying beyond coherence, undermined the resilience of young people, and encouraged litigation and public shaming—all while distracting from cases involving genuine abuse.
