Unpracticed policies displaying hypocrisy

Matthew "Alex" McLendon, a 15 year-old cross-dressing student at the Georgian Country Day School, was "invited to withdraw" or face expulsion from the small, private school on Oct. 6.

While private schools generally have much narrower behavioral policies than their public counterparts, particularly when it comes to dress codes and conduct policies, the Georgian Country's actions are hypocritical.

While the school handbook promotes accepting "diversity in opinion, culture, ideas, behavioral characteristics, attributes, or challenges," the administration acted in direct opposition to those beliefs.

Rather than teaching students tolerance, the school boar's actions taught just the opposite. They, not the students, are the ones that could have learned something.

Alex, and easy-going, popular student, encountered no difficulties at school. Some of his male classmates wore bows in their hair to protest the forced withdrawal until the principal ordered them to stop.

If tolerance of diversity in behavioral characteristics will not be practiced by the school's administration, then it should not be preached to students.