A new development in Jena’s courts aims to balance the scales, if not with legal correction, then with cash.

Scrofulous sage Samuel Johnson remarked that “patriotism is the last bastion of the scoundrel”, and in the case of the Jena Six controversy, this is made abundantly clear. What was, by all indications, an example of an over-zealous and somewhat draconian District Attorney hurling the book at repeat offenders became a tale of misunderstood unfortunates provoked into setting themselves up as targets for tacit modern racism. Through the glinting glass of an American psyche all too ready to prove its vigilance over civil rights was still keen, the obvious was obscured by the political. Politicians in the sunset of their race-based platforms’ power like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton could again look like fresh patriots. And, in due course, the offenders became seen as the victims, and the victim became irrelevant.

Irrelevant, that is, until the victim resorted to the last bastion for victims who politics and media have failed: A civil lawsuit.

JENA, La. — The family of a white student allegedly beaten by six black classmates in rural Louisiana has filed a civil lawsuit against the teens’ parents, the adult teens, an additional student and the local school board.

The suit names the attackers as the “Jena Six” students — Bell, Bryant Purvis, Robert Bailey Jr., Carwin Jones, Theo Shaw and a juvenile — as well as a second juvenile.

Law enforcement officials have not named the second juvenile as one of the attackers.

“Petitioners show that Justin was singled out by Mychal, Bryant, Robert, Carwin, Theodore (and the two juveniles), and that the malicious and willful attack of Justin was of such extreme nature so as to require emergency medical care and treatment for the harm inflicted by the attack, and resulting in extensive and permanently disabling injuries,” the lawsuit states.

The beating was preceded by racial incidents, including three white students hanging nooses from a tree.

The civil suit was filed Thursday. The lawsuit alleges that the LaSalle Parish School Board, through its employees, was not adequately supervising students or maintaining discipline.

That last accusation - against the School Board - is as clear as the swinging nooses earlier referenced.

For those not initiated into the details of the Jena case, the nooses mentioned sparked a series of interracial fights. The LaSalle response was to call in the bombastic District Attorney J. Walter Reed to address the school. Take note of Reed, as if there is any single cause for Jena going from a shrug-worthy story of racial tension to a national incident where the assailants become the martyrs, it’s him.

Reed “addressed” the students by threatening them with vicious legal action. Then followed what the newspapers usually stash down at the end of any article about Jena, if print at all, which was a series of assaults inspired by and involving one of the Jena Six - Robert Bailey, Jr. Eventually Junior’s rascally behavior reached a grim head as he and his five famous cohorts jumped Justin Barker.

It might have all still fizzled away had not Reed made good on his promise. Acting on the vow he made to the assembly at LaSalle’s school, Reed threw the book at the Six. He stuck to his guns despite community protest, keeping the charges harsh - “assault with intent” - and the poor-weather patriots of the burned out civil rights movement smelled blood in the water.

Next thing you know, two of the six kids who ambushed and gang-beat another kid were being honored at the BET awards.

Quite a few aspects of this case are offensive, and not just because it shows how pathetic civil rights activism has become - as ignores issues like the actual epidemic racism of our prison system - but because of the basis of its outrage. If Reed and Reed alone was its target, that would be different. But by making the Six out as pathetic victims worthy of being honored, it accepts the notion that they are so bestial that they can’t be blamed for the most craven violent action - the nooses drove them to it. And to that, I have to wonder, are they serious? We have to hold minorities to a lesser standard of behavior because they can’t control their emotions enough to not break the law?

That’s a long way from the philosophy brilliantly outlined in “Letters From A Birmingham Jail”.

But if emotionalism is going to be the mettle of the day, not high-minded idealism, then Barker’s suit may prove two can play at that game: After all, with a weepy Louisiana jury counting the stitches in his head, punitive damages can climb mighty high.