Cotter’s Suspension Simply Goes Too Far Against Overkill Don’t Bludgeon Mild Offenders Into Compliance.

Three men, all county employees, were having a conversation one day in early summer when one of them made a suggestive remark.

They thought they were alone, but a female colleague overheard the comment, which she believed referred to her. She heard a second man add something she couldn’t make out, and she heard the three men laugh.

The woman might have spoken out then and there - told the men their behavior was rude and offensive - but that’s an awkward burden to put on someone in that situation. Instead, she went to higher-ups and filed a complaint. She did so weeks after the incident.

Claude Cox, the man who made the initial comment, was suspended for four weeks. But the discipline didn’t stop there. Jim Cotter, the second man who made the inaudible remark - and failed to protest on the spot - was suspended for a week.

That’s going too far.

We live in challenging times, marked by issues too complex to explain with glib cliches like “political correctness” or “boys will be boys.”

At the social level, we long for a climate that fosters universal respect for human dignity. But at the individual level, we cherish privacy, liberty, freedom of opinion and the right to speak our minds, especially in closed conversations.

Those ideals can be reconciled, but not easily. And certainly not by bludgeoning mild offenders into compliance with a self-righteous code of conduct that is spottily enforced.

If we’re going to demand universal civility, we must frown just as harshly on women who refer to an absent male colleague as a lecher or chauvinist as on men who make disparaging sexist remarks about women. We have to protect the feelings of conservative Christians as energetically as we do those of Jews, Muslims or others whose religious beliefs inspire distasteful conversations.

Realistically, we can’t sanitize the world. We can, however, raise awareness, sharpen sensitivity, refine attitudes. We can educate and we can learn - all of us.

Harsh penalties might modify inappropriate behavior, might even induce friends and colleagues to inform on one another. But if we want to get beyond behavior to the underlying attitudes, that calls for a more constructive response - not a public caning.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see headline: Suspension sends a needed message

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