First there was the ban on hugs and high-fives at a Fairfax County, Virginia middle school last year that resulted in a flap over a 13-year-old male student, putting his arm around his girlfriend while walking down the school corridor.

This year, the Mesa, Arizona school district caused a campus uproar by enacting its own hug ban. Seeking to calm the storm, The local TV news channel (TV News 5) reported that school officials sought to calm the storm by brokering an agreement with the students that allowed hugs of two seconds or less in duration.

But this too little, too late for protesters, including parents, who had already mobilized a giant 20-minute hug-a-thon across the street from school.

Deborah Lambert writes the Squeaky Chalk column for Accuracy in Academia‘s monthly Campus Report newsletter from which this feature is excerpted.