Ever since the 9/11 tragedy, we seem to have this penchant for overreaction.

A couple things reminded me of that this week.

First, there was the evacuation of Fort Wayne International Airport.

A suspicious metal case was found in a bathroom at the airport.

Airport security staff was told there was an aluminum case in a restroom in the boarding area.

An X-ray showed the case had numerous electric wires inside.

Security staff called the Fort Wayne PD's bomb squad and evacuated people in the boarding area and passengers in two planes.

The bomb squad determined the device inside the case was a handheld video game.

The passengers were allowed to return to the planes after about a 40-minute delay. Other passengers were kept out of the boarding area until police thoroughly checked out the area.

No word on whether the kid came back to claim his Gameboy¨. I wonder if he flew off and left it or if he was on the way home. Either way, I bet he (or she) is bummed.

Then, there was the pink nonsense in Merrillville.

Seems the Merrillville school district banned the wearing of pink clothing earlier this week.

School officials noticed an uptick in the number of pink things being worn by students - including pink shoelaces.

The officials thought this might be a precursor to some sort of gang activity so they told the kids they shouldn't wear pink.

Well, either they have a gang problem up there or there is just a lot of pink clothing in the new spring lines.

I was in University Park Mall in South Bend a couple weeks ago. Seems like the women's clothing stores had a lot of pink stuff.

And I guess I haven't really heard too much about gang bangers choosing pink.

On Thursday, about 100 middle school students wore pink shirts to school to protest.

Of course, this resulted in mass wardrobe changes because the principal made them all change into school T-shirts they had lying around.

Some of the kids anticipated the likely outcome and brought a change of clothes with them.

The principal said while he understood that students thought the policy was unfair, the protest distracted from education.

No students were disciplined for wearing pink, and the principal noted, "I will continue to listen to any student who wants to tell us how they feel. But it's really important that students not pour fuel on fire."

The superintendent says the policy was misunderstood.

"Students are not banned from wearing pink clothing," he stated in a letter sent home to parents, adding, "However, the wearing of any color when worn by groups of students to set themselves apart as an exclusive group will be investigated as possibly violating the student handbook regarding the wearing of gang colors."

OK, so if that's the case, why did the principal make the kids change?

The superintendent said that gangs have not infiltrated the northwestern Indiana school district because 'our administrators try to head off any potential problem with the sole interest of keeping our schools safe from inappropriate behavior.'

I suppose it would be tough to be a school administrator in northwest Indiana. I bet they deal with lots of issues administrators around don't ever see.

But pink?

It kind of goes hand in hand with the zero tolerance stuff we've been hearing about.

You know, like the 17-year-old honors student in Arkansas beginning his senior year - his college career is in danger because of a 45-day sentence to an alternative school. His offense? An arbitrary search of his car by school officials in the spring revealed no drugs, but a scraper and pocketknife that his father had inadvertently left there the night before when he was fixing the rearview mirror. The dad pleaded with the school, but hey, those are weapons. And the kid brought them to school.

In a similar incident in Florida, an 18-year-old National Merit scholar was pulled out of class, handcuffed, charged with a felony and banned from her graduation. A police officer had passed by her car and spotted a kitchen knife lying in the passenger seat. She had left it there accidentally after using it the weekend before to open boxes. No one disputed the explanation, but her principal declined requests by the girl and her family for leniency because he need to be "fair."

Five students in Mississippi were suspended and criminally charged for throwing peanuts on a school bus, one of which hit the bus driver. According to the sheriff: "This time it was peanuts, but if we don't get a handle on it, the next time it could be bodies." Really? Bodies? How does one throw a body?

All across the land students have been subjected to disciplinary action for bringing Midol or Advil to school, bringing a water pistol to school or taking a slurp of Listerine during school hours.

I know school officials are deeply concerned with keeping their schools safe.

At the same time, it seems that once-size-fits-all disciplinary policies are really unfair to students.

It seems that the fairest thing to do would be to use a little discretion. [[In-content Ad]]