Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition as “harassment”? According to a UPI story,

A sixth-grader in Belpre, W.Va., started a three-day suspension from school Tuesday for sharing Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit edition with his pals.

Justin Reyes, 12, brought a copy of the magazine to the Belpre Middle School last week, which education officials said was a violation of the school’s non-verbal harassment policy and disrupted the learning process of other students, the Parkersburg News and Sentinel reported on its Web site Tuesday.

“It (the magazine) is without question, graphic, vulgar — I think — obscene to minors,” Tim Swarr, superintendent of Belpre schools, told the newspaper. . . .

I’m not wild about swimsuit magazines, and I can surely see how they can be distracting to 12-year-olds. Still, a three-day suspension for that? And “harassment” and “obscen[ity as] to minors”?

UPDATE: Note that the three-day suspension was implemented as a second choice; the school originally ordered the boy to go for two days to an alternative school seemingly reserved for chronic troublemakers — when the mother refused (as I certainly would have had I been the parent), the three-day suspension was imposed instead. Note also that Belpre is apparently not in West Virginia, but in Ohio right near the West Virginia border (thanks to reader Nels Nelson for the correction).

     Nelson also points out that other stories also say that the student was punished for “possession of lewd or suggestive material” (I’m quoting the AP account here) as well as “harassment.” The suggestive material charge at least is plausible, and perhaps such rules should indeed be enforced as to 12-year-olds; as I mentioned, I can see how such materials can be quite distracting to classmates. But I still don’t see how (unless there’s more here than I’ve seen in the press accounts) such a violation should merit sending the kid even for two days to a school for troublemakers, or suspending him for three days.