Suspension for Kiss

* I absolutely cannot believe a 6-year-old boy was suspended from school on the grounds of sexual harassment after kissing a girl on the cheek at his school (Sept. 25)! I don’t call that harassment. I call it normal childhood development. Looks like the administrators of that school have some growing up to do themselves. I think they should go sit in the corner and not move until they get a grip!

MICHELLE COOK

Northridge

* Although it’s now fashionable to be anti-”politically correct,” I was outraged by your Sept. 26 editorial, which lambasted the school that suspended Johnathan Prevette for sexual harassment.

True, his punishment may have been too harsh. However, to compare a boy who forceably kissed a girl to a Norman Rockwell portrait--and some sort of American rite of passage--is an illustration of something that’s terribly wrong in our culture.

As we all saw from the Anita Hill case, women are accustomed to enduring sexual harassment. It’s ingrained in our culture. But that doesn’t make it right.

This child, even if only 6 years old, needs to be taught early on that sexual harassment is not acceptable. Schools have a legitimate function in teaching that lesson. After all, how would you feel if your little girl was being sexually harassed, and school officials knew about it and didn’t do anything?

J.C. FLORES

Sunland