Lewiston High School and its principal, Patrick O’Neill, deserve credit for the way they have handled a recent dispute with a student and the Maine College Republicans.

On Oct. 4, media outlets around the state received an inflammatory news release attacking the school. In the release, produced and distributed by the state’s College Republicans, 17-year-old Brent Bowen accused the school of violating his free speech rights and threatening him with suspension because of his political views.

Both sides agree on the general outlines of what happened.

Bowen was handing out copies of The Pachyderm Press, the newspaper of the Maine College Republicans, in the school. A teacher asked if he had permission from administrators; Bowen didn’t. He then got the OK from an assistant principal and returned to the cafeteria to hand out more papers.

It’s in the details where the school and Bowen diverge. Bowen said in the release that he was approached “by an openly socialist” teacher who asked if he had permission to hand out the paper. After receiving permission, Bowen said, he was confronted by a group of faculty members who threatened him with suspension and tore up copies of the paper.

The school disputes that such threats occurred or that teachers destroyed newspapers.

When contacted by the Sun Journal, Bowen changed his story a couple of times and softened his accusations. The “openly socialist” teacher morphed into a teacher he didn’t really know. Later in the day, he only knew about the teacher from friends who took classes from her.

Here’s what we think happened. Bowen got mad when a teacher asked him to get permission to hand out the Republican newspaper. He called his friends in the College Republicans. He vented, and the rhetoric got cranked up, the outrage accelerated.

The dynamic changed, however, when the group publicly blistered the high school for its “unprofessional” and “reprehensible” actions, which we don’t believe occured exactly as advertised in the media release.

The school, however, felt the heat immediately as the community – and especially Republicans – flooded it with calls and e-mails. Plenty of good people received hate mail for something they had nothing to do with.

Principal O’Neill could have easily gone into bunker mode. Instead, he investigated the incident and scheduled a meeting, which was held Tuesday, with Bowen and the College Republicans. Both sides called the meeting cordial and productive.

We’ll chalk the unfair news release up to youthful exuberance; and we’ll credit O’Neill and the school for a mature response.