Jake Sandler and Alex Lamothe were best friends at Westland Middle School in Bethesda, Maryland. Lamothe, black, from a modest neighborhood near Rosemary Hills in Silver Spring, and Sandler, white, from tony Kenwood in Chevy Chase, swam in Sandler's backyard pool and hung out at his 5,739-square-foot house on nearly half an acre.

The friendship ended when the teens entered high school. Except for a nod when their paths crossed at Bethesda-Chevy Chase (B-CC) High School, they no longer hung out, no longer spoke. Sandler was taking mostly advanced placement courses, while Lamothe was in regular classes. Late last fall, when Lamothe dropped out of B-CC, Sandler didn't inow ho to contact him.

The estrangement puzzled and upset Sandler, so much so that the 2008 B-CC graduate wrote his college applicaiton essay about his lost friendship and the larger issue of self-segregation in high school...