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"They're not arguing the infraction, they're arguing the way it's being handled, and the ridiculous penalties being put on them- penalties they feel far outweigh anything a hetero couple would get. That's a glaring inequality, if it's true."
Not at all. If a male and female were repeatedly told to cool their PDAs at the school, even after being penalized (suspended) several times because of it, and still continued, I think they would get the same treatment. No foul here.
However, I will go further: You don't have to treat everyone the same, because they are not the same. If a female dashed across the gym topless, this would be grounds for suspension. If a male did it, it would not. If a male wore lipstick and makeup to school it appropriate to demand that this be stopped, while I assume many females do just that. This is not because he does not have the right to be different, it’s because he does not have the right to be distracting while at school.
In a similar way to individuals being treated differently, couples may be treated differently if their behavior has different effects. I suspect that there is a rule against any PDA of any kind at the school. However, high school being what it is, that rule is difficult to enforce completely so they only go after obvious or disruptive incidents. These students got "dinged" for both.
Once the students got dinged once for being disruptive together, they had more attention paid to them. They chose to repeatedly defy the rules and got into hot water repeatedly.
Assuming the article has the facts correct and there are no important omissions, I think the school did the correct thing.
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