No one ever said high school was supposed to be easy. Kids can be cruel, and insults flung at insecure teens in their high school years stick with them decades later, even the shining students who were captain of the football team or the homecoming queen.

But when taunting escalates into harassment and assault, school administrators need to step in and make sure it is stopped.

Being urinated on in the shower after wrestling practice is not something any student should have to endure in high school. Neither is being called a “fag,” having your books spit on and having your cell phone’s greeting screen changed to “huge homo.”

Yet, a Perry High School senior endured all of this over the course of four years, despite pleas for help to administrators.

The student, who is not identified in court papers, recently sued the district, claiming that school administrators and teachers did nothing to stop the endless harassment by fellow students who believe he is gay.

If you think you’ve heard a similar story in the Ames area, you’re right. An openly gay Gilbert High School student and part-time ISU student endured similar acts of discrimination by his peers in 2001-02. Jerryn Johnston was the victim of several hate crimes, including loosened lug nuts and five punctured tires on his car, before he attempted to have the Gilbert School Board add sexual orientation to the school district’s nondiscrimination and harassment policies.

They refused. Would administrators tolerate high school students harassing a black student, calling him a “nigger,” urinating on him after practice or attempting to sabotage his car?

Not likely. Why, then, have high school administrators in communities such as Gilbert and Perry turned a blind eye toward gay students who are living daily with harassment and even assault at the hands of their peers?

The student reported all of the incidents, but a teacher told the young man he had “the biggest mouth in the south,” according to court documents. The teachers and administrators should reconsider their actions and their obligations to the students they are entrusted with. It is their duty to make sure an environment exists where all students can learn, regardless of their sexual orientation.

Harassment has a tendency to escalate and build, especially in the hormone-hyped setting of high school. If urinating on a student in the shower doesn’t get the attention of administrators, what will? When the student is beaten, robbed, shot or stabbed by classmates?

Perry High School officials should take action to protect any student who is being harassed and assaulted by his or her classmates. A lawsuit shouldn’t be necessary to remind them of this obligation.