Randomex:
You wrote: “Would it be beyond reason to suggest that the person with a greater obligation to honor the other apologize first, namely, the student?
Besides, in this case, the school/yeshiva has the power, and they want the boy to apologize. To start a you-go-first standoff seems counter-productive to me. (Call me a defeatist if you want to.)”
The honor issue is brought up all the time, and it is irrelevant. Whoever wronged another has the chiyuv to apologize. To exploit honor, with the expectation that the other has the obligation to give kavod and therefore must humble himself is purely ignorant. Because the rebbe has the chiyuv to be mechanech, if anyone needs to go first, it is him. The power thing is also irrelevant. Does the weaker one always need to bow in submission to the bully? What a bizayon!. Yet, that is the common occurence, and it is a shame that this has become the way of our yeshivos. The one with the chiyuv in yeshiva is the rebbe, not the talmid. That’s what chinuch is. These standoffs are regular occurrence, and they are directly correlated with the rebelliousness we see today.