Barely enough time has passed for bologna sandwiches to begin rotting in school lockers, yet the 2011-2012 school year is shaping up to be one of the stinkiest ever, if we’re measuring in episodes of putrid political correctness and radicalism.

Already:

A group in Brookline, Massachusetts is working to ban the Pledge of Allegiance from its school district on the grounds that reciting it is “un-American” and also might promote bullying of students who refuse to say it;

A student in Fort Worth, Texas, was suspended for expressing privately to another student, unrelated to the content of the German class in which they were, that his Christian beliefs taught him that homosexuality is wrong. The teacher, overhearing the private comment, sent the student to the principal’s office for disciplinary action – not for holding a side conversation during class, but for opposing homosexuality;

A mother in the Sierra Sands Unified School District in California learned from her kindergarten and third-grade daughters that a male employee of the school cafeteria came to work attired in make-up and a tank top, revealing a bra with exposed straps. The District claimed, “its hands were tied” because, while the attire in question would not be permitted for students, it could not limit a transvestite from dressing in drag for work even if such behavior disrupts the learning environment.