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Ms. Tulip said it was wrong for Silbereis to put the costume back on once a school official told him to take it off. Her husband says Silbereis might have been more responsive if the teacher had spoken directly to him, rather than complaining to the dean's office. "It's really a case of knee-jerk conservatism," he said.

The parents did not protest the suspension, although Mr. Tulip says they might now ask that it be removed from his record.

Still, school policy still seems a little indiscriminate to Mr. Tulip. "I think it's great that kids use their imagination on Halloween," he says. "But school officials are often in a sticky situation."

He said that one school official complained to him that each Halloween "half the men dress as women and half the women dress as sluts."

It seems like not too many kids want to dress as witches and ghosts anymore. In the wake of school shootings, terrorist attacks, the war in Afghanistan, and sensitivities to all sorts of groups, is Halloween becoming too hot a topic for high school? And if Ms. Tulip was off base to let her son go to school in a vagina costume, where do you draw the line?

Following is a sampling of what readers thought.

Readers Sound Off

• "Schools today are more concerned with being politically correct and catering to the easily offended than they are with teaching our children to be successful adults. Fifty percent of the people in the world have vaginas. To say that I was offended by this costume would be the same as me saying that I am offended at the fact that all women have vaginas." S.H., Garland, Texas

• "That costume is 100% better than one worn here in San Antonio. The 'idiot' here was dressed as the WTC complete with a plane sticking out of his side. That is/was the epitome of SICK, not this young lad's costume." J.B., San Antonio, Texas

• "For Halloween we are suppose to dress up as who/what we admire … or to scare people. Well this costume obviously scared people, and maybe it is something he admires … don't all males?! If people can't face sex, genitalia, or the fact that his costume is part of the reasons we are all hear, then I believe those people should not be teaching or running the school (especially the sex ed classes)." A.C., Herndon, Va.

• "The costume is more embarrassing, I think, than offensive, but I can certainly see how people could be offended by it. A school party is probably not the best venue for such a costume. College, yes, but high school, no, just simply because parents and teachers are so involved in what their kids are exposed to." N.B.-R., Austin, Texas

• "Our bodies are anatomically correct but we are still required to wear clothing." L.A., Jackson, Mich.

• "These [school officials] are the same idiots that will not allow their students display the American flag, pray in school, have the Boy Scouts meet at their local school, all because it might offend some un-American/non-citizen." J.G., Langley, Wash.