In Brainerd, MN, students at Mississippi Horizons high school passed around a journal and were asked to write answers to a question: "Would you date [a specific girl]?" Many of the answers were insulting, some sexual. According to school officials, the intent was to give the insulting book to the girl when it was completed to let her know how little the boys in the school thought of her.

That consititutes harassment, says the district, and so forty students who wrote in the journal were suspended, given sexual harassment worksheets and training material, and suspended from school. Mind you, none of these kids said anything in person to the girl in question, nor touched her -- they're suspended for harassment because of opinions or writings about her in a notebook.

Sure, you can file harassment complaints against peers and not just supervisors, but to be harassed you generally have to have made some contact with the harassee or said something to her (or him). Being nasty behind her (or his) back is hurtful, but neither illegal nor cause to be suspended from public school. Indoctrination instead of education is the domain of private schools; it's why they're there.

Produced like a newsmagazine but not exactly like one, Frontline/World premieres this week on PBS for one showing, then won't be back until October, when it will air seven times before May 2003. Aimed at a younger audience, reports the Chronicle, the series's first installment includes an exclusive on arms trafficking in West Africa, plus Tamil Tiger suicide bombings in Sri Lanka (the most regular in the world) and the introduction of TV to Bhutan three years ago. Should be a hoot, time to set the TiVo.