The mean time

Twenty years later, and it still hurt.

The senior class president's invitation to a Dixie High School reunion was all it took.

"Congratulations to all of us for having survived long enough to have a 20-year class reunion," a former classmate responded. "I hope everyone has a wonderful time. But don't reserve a place for me. I have, in fact, spent most of those 20 years trying to forget the painful moments of our school days together.

"Now that I am nearly over those feelings of loneliness and shattered self-esteem, I cannot bring myself to see all of the class and run the risk of remembering all of that again."

The story, related years ago by Elder Jeffrey Holland of the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve, was set in the context of the Christian mandate to "love one another as I have loved you." Of that former classmate, he said, "I have wept for her and other friends like her in our youth. We were simply not the Savior's agents or disciples that he intended a group of young people to be."

Despite the fact that every major religious tradition teaches the concept of kindness and love for one's fellow beings, few girls in American society move through junior high and high school without experiencing at least some outright hostility from peers. Allegations last month that a male student was sexually harassing girls at Oquirrh Hills Middle School in the Jordan School District brought a variety of responses from fellow students and adults.

But many questions about what type of behavior among students crosses the line from acceptable to unacceptable have yet to be definitively answered by school administrators. The realm of acceptable gets even murkier when aggression is covert or ignored, as aggression among girls often is. Has the problem resulted from a moral vacuum in public schools or in lack of moral teaching at home? Or are sexual harassment, bullying and "meanness" simply more widely acknowledged and discussed?

Even Hollywood has noticed. Teen cruelty is the basis of a hit movie, "Mean Girls," released last month.

The movie is based on the best-selling book "Queen Bees and Wannabees: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Other Realities of Adolescence," which describes the maze of social interaction that can leave some girls damaged for life. Author Rosalind Wiseman said the abuse takes place across all social classes and geographic regions, and the culprits come from families of all faith traditions as well as those with no religious backgrounds.