We're all about practicing our constitutional rights at this newspaper and certainly believe students should be encouraged to voice their opinion. It's too easy today for kids to be apathetic and self-centered, so we applaud those who express any interest in our government's foreign policy.

That is why we think the reported five- and 10-day suspensions and possible expulsions of up to 25 students at Morton West High School are extreme punishment for students who staged a sit-in protest in the school cafeteria on Nov. 1.

The students are certainly getting a lesson about the personal costs of civil disobedience. First they were protesting the war in Iraq -- a position we happen to support -- and then other students protested their suspensions.

School Supt. Ben Nowakowski has said that school officials asked the students to move their protest outside the school grounds. Students said they feared arrest because the police were outside the school waiting, including several police cars and a police van. After some negotiating -- and what teenager doesn't do this? -- students agreed to move from the cafeteria to a hallway by the principal's office. The students thought the school was condoning their protest by giving them an assigned staging area.

"They agreed we would not be punished if we moved," sophomore Adam Szwarek told us. "What we tried to do is something meaningful to protest the war and the soldiers dying every day."

Soon they learned there were severe consequences for speaking out. Although police described the protest in the school as peaceful and orderly, the disciplinary notices sent out by the school characterized the demonstration as "mob activity." School officials argue that the sit-in did not involve the issue of free speech. We disagree.

Perhaps the students were causing disorder by their protests, but isn't that the point? If the school wants to discipline the students for their minor disorderly conduct, then it should send them to a Saturday detention. (Who hasn't seen "The Breakfast Club" in its constant cable airings?) But to suspend the students for a week, or two, or to kick them out of school, jeopardizes their grades and their chances of going to college. And it sends a message that if you want to get ahead in life, kids, think of yourselves and your own futures, and not the future of the world.

Companion editorial in today's Chicago Sun-Times

War's Ugly Cost:
The Future - Our children will pay for Iraq war
[ www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/640624,CST-EDT-edit08a.article ]