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Examine, if you will, the following scenarios of crimes involving high school students in the small town of Jena, Louisiana:

A student asks to sit under a particular tree on campus, and is told he may sit wherever he likes. He does so, but the following day three nooses are found hanging from the tree. Despite the principal’s recommendation to expel the students involved in hanging the nooses, they receive a three day in-school suspension.

Later that fall, a student tried to enter a party, and was attacked and hit in the head with a beer bottle. The attacker was charged with battery and released on probation.

The next day, the student who had been attacked was taunted at a convenience store by another student, and the two got into a scuffle. The second student went to his truck to get his shotgun. The first student wrestled the gun away and took off. That student was charged with gun theft, second-degree battery, and disturbing the peace.

The next week another student taunted the boy who’d been attacked at the party, and he and a group of five of his friends surrounded and beat up the student, giving him bruises and a concussion. He was treated and released at a local hospital. The six students were charged with attempted second-degree murder.

Granted, none of these students deserve kudos for showing restraint, but the thousands of protestors who convened upon Jena this week argue that the cases were decided with racial prejudice.

The student who asked to sit under the tree is black; the tree was a favorite gathering place for white students. After the black student and his friends did sit under the tree, white students placed hanging nooses there the next day. Some feel that their punishment was light, noting that federal hate crime charges can result in imprisonment of up to ten years.

Later in the school year, black student Robert Bailey, Jr., then 16, went with some of his friends to a party attended by mostly whites. He was attacked at the party, and hit in the head with a beer bottle. The white student who assaulted him was charged with simple battery and given probation.

The next day Bailey met up with a white student at a convenience store, and the other student teased him about being beaten up the night before. The two got into a fight, and the white student ran to his pickup truck and threatened Bailey with a loaded shotgun. Bailey got the gun away from the student and ran away. Bailey was later charged with gun theft, second-degree battery, and disturbing the peace, while the white student was not charged with anything.

The following week white student Justin Barker and Bailey got into a verbal argument about the same party fight. Later six black students, including Bailey, attacked Barker, punching, kicking, and pummeling him to the ground. Barker suffered bruising and a concussion, and was treated and released at a local hospital.

Initially all six of the attackers were charged with second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder, which can carry a prison sentence of up to 50 years. Later the charges were reduced, some say due to pressure on the district attorney. All six of the accused were expelled from their high school, according to relatives.

All but one of the six eventually had their charges reduced or were able to post bail. But 16-year-old Mychal Bell was held in lieu of $90,000 bail on charges of aggravated second-degree battery, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years in jail. Bell is the first of the six to face trial, and he was tried as an adult. He was found guilty in June by an all-white jury, which deliberated for 95 minutes.

The case of "The Jena 6," as the group is called, has ignited civil rights leaders' ire, and inspired the call for the September 20th protest in Jena. The Reverend Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Martin Luther King III (son of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King) all spoke out against the charges being leveled at the accused.

Contributing to the issue are claims that the local district attorney is racist. District Attorney Reed Walters visited Jena High School in September at a student assembly that was called after racial tensions escalated. Though Walters was invited as a guest to try to assuage the students, some say he only escalated the issue, saying, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. With a stroke of my pen, I can make your lives disappear." Black students claim that Walters was looking directly at them, and that the threat was aimed toward black students only. Walters denied any racial discrimination or biased intention in the statement.

Protestors from all around the country took buses and carpooled to arrive in time for the September 20th protest march to Jena High School. The protesters, largely black, chanted slogans and wore black t-shirts with white lettering stating, "Free the Jena 6." By all accounts the protest was peaceful, despite what Louisiana state police estimate to be over 20,000 people who descended upon the small town of 2900. "No violence," urged Rev. Al Sharpton to the large crowds. "Not even an angry word. They will try to provoke you. You have to stand strong."

"The justice system isn't applied the same to all crimes and all people," said King; though he maintained that some punishment should happen for the attack on Barker, he felt, as did many others, that the charges and the sentences in different incidents throughout the fall were applied unfairly on the basis of race.

Bell’s conviction was overturned late last week, when it was decided that he should not have been tried as an adult. An appellate hearing is scheduled to be heard within 72 hours.

The case has even attracted the attention of the White House. President Bush said to reporters that he was aware of the case and the protest, adding, "The Justice Department and the FBI are monitoring the situation down there, and all of us in America want there to be fairness when it comes to justice."

Some of the marchers felt that the issue could have been dealt with more efficiently from the beginning, starting with law enforcement reaction to the noose hanging incident. Said protester Latese Brown, 40, to The New York Times, "If you can figure out how to make a schoolyard fight into an attempted murder charge, I’m sure you can figure out how to make stringing nooses into a hate crime."