Court Rules School Has The Power To Ban Students From Wearing American Flag Shirts...Wait What?
Foxnews - A federal court ruled Thursday that a northern California high school did not violate the constitutional rights of its students when school officials made them turn their American flag T-shirts inside out on Cinco de Mayo or be sent home due to fears of racial violence.The three-judge panel unanimously decided the officials’ need to protect the safety of their students outweighed the students’ freedom of expression rights. Administrators at Live Oak High School, in the San Jose suburb of Morgan Hill, feared the American-flag shirts would enflame Latino students celebrating the Mexican holiday, and ordered the students to either turn the shirts inside out or go home for the day. The school had a history of problems between white and Latino students on that day, and also had a documented history of violence between gang members and between racial groups. The court said these past problems gave school officials sufficient and justifiable reasons for their actions and that schools have wide latitude in curbing certain civil rights to ensure campus safety. “This is the United States of America,” the mother of one of the students Kendall Jones told the San Jose Mercury News. “The idea that it’s offensive to wear patriotic clothing … regardless of what day it is, is unconscionable to me.”The parents have said in previous interviews with several publications that their children were only trying to be patriotic, not start a fight with Latino students.
Everybody and their grandmother is sending me this story. Wild, wild stuff. Maybe the most shocking part of this is that I kind of get the school’s decision. I mean if the Mexicans and the Whites have a history of fighting on Cinco De Mayo and you know all the American flag shirts are going to cause a riot well then you got to do something about it I guess. So unlike a lot of times with school administrators I get the logic.
The bigger issue here is how did it get to this point? Like how can anybody interpret wearing an American flag shirt as this big of an insult in America? That’s the fucked up part. You probably shouldn’t live in this country if you get that offended. I don’t care if the white kids wear them strictly to antagonize the Mexican kids either. Bottomline is if you’re that bothered by the flag leave. These Mexican kids are Americans just like the white kids are. If they can’t celebrate Cinco De Mayo without wanting to fight people who wear American flags then don’t celebrate Cinco De Mayo in the school. That should be the future policy instead of making kids turn their flag shirts inside out. Part of what makes this country great is celebrating all the different cultures, but above all else we’re all Americans. America shouldn’t have to take a back seat in America to anybody.
