Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi delivered a sharp lesson this week to the students of Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Ill. -- which was, being right is no guarantee you'll be treated right.

Meanwhile, Barbour has demonstrated his own failure to learn a lesson most of us learn way before high school -- which is that it's never too late to say you're sorry.

Barbour declared that there will be no posthumous pardon for Clyde Kennard, a black man who was falsely accused of stealing $25 worth of chicken feed, sentenced to seven years in prison, and died of cancer three years later -- all for having tried to enroll in Mississippi Southern University, which at the time was all-white. The whole thing was a set-up, and files of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission show that state officials had openly discussed either framing Kennard, or killing him, to prevent his enrollment.

Three Stevenson High students -- Mona Ghadiri, Agnes Mazur, and Callie McCune -- collaborated with Professor Steven A. Drizin and the Northwestern University School Of Law Center On Wrongful Convictions on a campaign to try to convince Barbour to issue a posthumous pardon and expunge Kennard's record. They put together a comprehensive web site in support of Kennard and collected support from around the country.

Barbour and the state of Mississippi have acknowledged that Kennard was wronged. March 30 was Clyde Kennard Day in Mississippi, and on that date Barbour issued a proclamation honoring Kennard's determination and his role in the history of the civil rights movement. But it seems an actual pardon would be an apology too far....

Barbour's spokesman said that such a pardon would be "an empty gesture," adding, "There's nothing the governor can do for Clyde Kennard right now."

Kind of makes it sound like Kennard's life, wrongful conviction, and death are ancient history. But in fact, Kennard was convicted in 1960 and died in 1963. We're still listening to some of the same songs on the radio that he would have heard. So no, it isn't too late for Mississippi to say it's sorry. Maybe it's too soon.