Jesse Jackson is in the middle of the squabble over how long six black students should be expelled from a Decatur, Ill., high school for being part of a wild fight at a football game Sept. 17.

Initially, the students were kicked out for two years. Jackson has led demonstrations, been on camera and been arrested amid a whole lot of singing and finger-pointing.And because Jackson has become such a powerful man in the United States, his going to Decatur reached all the way to the top of the Illinois ladder. Gov. George Ryan stepped in and started negotiating the terms of the expulsion with such gusto that the two years were reduced to one.

The local school board stands behind that reduction, although Jackson still wants the students' cases reviewed by January to see if they can be readmitted then.

The case has no relationship to race, says Jackson. But a lawyer speaking for him last week cited the constitutional amendment that granted blacks full citizenship. If there is a difference between the way Jackson and those around him see this thing, we can be sure that Jackson, once again, proves himself the smartest guy in the pack.

Still, the question remains as to whether this is really an issue that Jackson should be sticking his nose into. Was there really a racial injustice committed in Decatur? If so, we would want and expect Jackson to be on the spot as soon as his plane could get him there.

But what we have in this case is not a racial matter. The issue is what the local school board calls a zero-tolerance policy on violence. If a student gets into a violent scrape, he is gone.

This sort of policy is what we need in this era, not just because of the Columbine High School bloodbath and other such high-profile slaughters but because of how much students often suffer at the hands of the violent among them.

We too often get mixed up about just whose interest we should be representing in situations like the violent eruption in Decatur.

The videotape of the incident looks pretty raw to me and makes quite a case for strong action by the school board. As far as I'm concerned, a two-year expulsion is not too long.

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I do agree with Jackson that there should be some kind of alternative education for these boys along the way. When I was a kid in Los Angeles, there were alternative schools for knuckleheads, some of whom turned out to be superior citizens.

But what I want to know is this: Why does no one ever step forward and speak as strongly in the interest of the kids who are terrorized, even brutalized, by the knuckleheads among them?

The vast majority of this country's kids are neither dangerous nor violent, however much time they might waste enjoying violent pop entertainment. They need as much protection as they can get, both from those who shred their innocence with cheap, grisly thrills and those who threaten them physically.

Men like Jesse Jackson need to think about that.

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