Too Cruel for School

Last spring, 14-year-old Song was dragged from the front gate of her Seoul high school to a vacant parking lot by 10 female classmates, who for the next four hours took turns slapping, punching and spitting on her while two boys recorded the assault on cell-phone video cameras. One attacker kicked Song between the legs; others threatened to bury her alive. "I believed them," says Song, a pretty, doe-eyed girl who suffered severe bruises and a dislocated jaw. She still can't talk about the beating without crying (she insisted on a pseudonym before telling her story to TIME). Her schoolyard transgression?...