If a recent report on bias and harassment at Portland High by the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence were a high school student, chances are it'd be eating alone in the cafeteria. And maybe taking an occasional Tater Tot to the head. The information it held -- that students at the school regularly hurl racial, ethnic, religious, sexist and homophobic insults at one another -- was decidedly unpopular.

People posted more than 100 comments at MaineToday.com on three days' worth of Portland Press Herald stories on the report and none had anything nice to say about it. The reasons for the anger, though, varied.

Quite a few, like M, seized upon one of the details of the report, which stated that Portland High School has a special place for Muslims to pray. He or she saw such "special treatment" as a cause of some of the tensions:

"The pledge of allegiance is not said because it refers to God, they want to take any celebration of Christmas out of the public schools, BUT the Muslims have special rights? Not fair and probably one of the many reasons for the problem."

For the record, they do say the pledge every morning at Portland High. And never mind that Muslims are mandated by their religion to pray at certain times and that any other student may pray as they see fit (and, likely, use that very room if they really wanted to). Still another insisted that taking the Bible out of the classroom had eroded children's morals to the point where they've resorted to out-and-out harassment. Because surely, no Christian ever exhibited signs of bias or hate toward another person. Take it from this Catholic school alum: It happens.

But who needs understanding when you've got excuses?

Speaking of excuses, another reader thought a source of some of the problems cited in the report was the school curriculum itself. One poster summed it up this way:

"We push for positive role models for our minority students but then whites in history are only shown to be slave owners, Indian killers, or destroyers of nature. How can you expect some students to not rebel against that view?"

You know, come to think of it, I never did find out about that Abraham Lincoln guy until I was out of school. And Susan B. Anthony? Isn't that one of those dollar coin things? Who accepts those, anyway?

On the other side of anger were those who took issue not with the findings, but with the way they were presented. Some, like Amy, thought Portland High School had been unfairly singled out:

"Portland High School is not 'awash' with harassment, this newspaper is 'awash' with unfair bias. No matter what side of the issue you're on, at least Portland is making their results public."

True, the headline of the particular story Amy was referring to did accentuate the negative aspect of the story (that harassment happens often at Portland High) rather than the positive (that it's being acknowledged and confronted). Headlines aside, any story like this is going to understandably put people on the defensive. A lot of people posting from Portland were upset that the problem seemed to be cast as a Portland or Portland High problem, saying bias and harassment are a fact of life at every American school.

Of course, labeling it a Portland problem makes it easier to not deal with the issue or to blame the problem on Portland's immigrant population, which quite a few did.

Why don't they learn to speak English?

Why don't they assimilate like our ancestors did? (Read: Stop being so different. And very easy to say when you yourself have not had to "assimilate.")

And then there were those who thought there was no problem, or that the problem was the people claiming -- no, make that crying -- harassment. And they couldn't believe that anyone would dare call a little teasing harassment. Greg was among those in the "buck up" camp, saying:

"If you touchy feely types would try teaching students to rise above petty [indignities] rather than seek victimization from them, that might actually prevent hate and violence."

Sticks and stones, kids. Sticks and stones!

Apparently, some folks had this report confused with another one, from the Department of Mild Schoolyard Taunts -- the one that chronicles such zingers as "Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider." I don't think a black kid being told to go back to Africa would consider that comment a petty indignity. Nor should a girl who was groped in a hallway or called a graphic name be expected to rise above it rather than confront it.

Some readers had enough of the excuses. Like Deborah, who urged people to step outside of themselves for a moment and pull their heads out of the sand -- comforting as that sand may be:

"I am so tired of this arrogant refusal to do the work -- to examine our stereotypes, prejudices, expectations, fears, etc. that inform damaging opinions and actions. They can be so entrenched in us white people that sometimes they seem 'natural.' "

It looks like we all have a little homework to do tonight. Just remember to show your work along with your answers.

KEEP UP with Colleen Stone's latest thoughts and musings on Maine and post

your comments in her regularly updated blog:

http://travel.mainetoday.com/fromaway/blog