Posted on 2/9/2004, 9:54:14 PM by Rebeleye
A week after controversy erupted over student displays of the Confederate flag at Tarpon Springs High School, a Pinellas County School Board member wants the district to ban the flag in schools. Board member Mary Brown said she plans to bring the issue up at the board's meeting Tuesday. The first African-American to be elected to the board, Brown said the district's student code of conduct needs to be more specific about whether students can wear the flag to school.
(Excerpt) Read more at sptimes.com ...
Board member Mary Brown said she plans to bring the issue up at the board's meeting Tuesday. The first African-American to be elected to the board, Brown said the district's student code of conduct needs to be more specific about whether students can wear the flag to school.
"We need to be sure that our policy does not leave loopholes," Brown said. "This district should be committed to diversity and all the things that go with it and all of the things that go with respect for children."
Brown said she became concerned about student displays of the flag after reading about how Tarpon Springs High School junior Krista Abram, 17, was suspended for 10 days after she circulated a petition calling for a ban on the Confederate flag in school.
Principal Dennis Duda said Abram violated school rules when she failed to get his approval of the petition. On Monday, he reduced Abram's suspension to three days.
Telephone calls to Duda's office were not returned Friday. But earlier, Duda said emotions on campus were running high.
Speakers from the National Conference for Community and Justice led a classroom dialogue about the flag Tuesday.
NCCJ executive director Roy Kaplan said a racially mixed group of about 30 students discussed the flag and racial tensions on campus.
"There were some tears and anger, but basically, the students had a chance to tell their side," Kaplan said. "Commitments were made that the racist activities and the derogatory symbols would stop, and students apologized for it."
Pinellas County Commissioner Calvin Harris said that kind of discussion is important, but he also supports a ban. He said he plans to encourage school officials to consider a ban on the flag and to expunge Abram's suspension from her school record.
"If you teach history, if you teach tolerance and if you're honest about what's gone on, then people will understand why African-Americans don't want to see this in their schools," Harris said.
Under the district's code of student conduct, students are not allowed to wear "clothes or tattoos that show profanity, violence, sexually suggestive phrases or pictures." The district has never issued a specific ban on displaying the Confederate flag or any other symbol.
School Board superintendent Howard Hinesley said a ban on the Confederate flag could infringe on students' First Amendment right to free speech.
Hinesley said he thinks leaving decisions on whether to ban such symbols up to individual school principals is the best approach.
"If we ban it, then where do you stop?" Hinesley said. "When these things come up they usually come up in one school. I think we do have language in the code that allows it to be dealt with."
Tarpon Springs City Commissioner David Archie said he is not convinced.
"There needs to be something that gives greater guidance to the principal so that it's not just left up to someone's discretion that the swastika is offensive and the Confederate flag is not," said Archie, who is also a member of the district's monitoring and advisory committee, the biracial group charged with overseeing enforcement of desegregation of schools.
Some School Board members said they expected the issue to come up after the Tarpon Springs incident.
Board member Nancy Bostock said she is not likely to support a ban, but said the board should discuss it.
"I think we have to be very cautious when we're going to ban a student's dress," Bostock said. "That one student or a handful of students out of 2,000 is offended isn't enough for me to support a ban."
Schools in Alachua, Collier and Leon counties have wrestled with conflicts over the Confederate flag in recent years, and one Volusia County case wound up in federal court.
In 2000, the 11th U.S. District Court of Appeals threw out a lawsuit filed by Volusia County student Wayne Denno after Pine Ridge High School administrators suspended him in 1995 for showing a small flag to fellow students during lunch.
Denno appealed the lower court's decision, arguing his First Amendment right should take precedence over a school ban. The U.S. Supreme Court opted not to hear the case.
ACLU of Florida legal director Randall Marshall said the Tarpon Springs case is complicated.
He said the First Amendment protects a student's right to petition, so administrators erred when they suspended Abram for failing to get the petition approved.
"I think it's fairly certain that her civil rights have been violated," Marshall said.
But the ACLU also contends that displays of the Confederate flag should be protected by the First Amendment, Marshall said.
However, the federal ruling in Denno's case could provide a sufficient precedent for a potential districtwide ban in Pinellas County, he said.
"The government could not ban you from putting a Confederate flag bumper sticker on your car, but it does become different when you enter a school," he said.
Tarpon Springs is not the only Tampa Bay area school to be faced with a dispute involving the Confederate flag recently.
On Wednesday, Pasco County Schools officials suspended four students for raising a Confederate flag over Hudson High School. The students are accused of replacing the U.S. flag with a Confederate flag with the words "I ain't coming down" printed across it.
- Times staff writer Thomas Tobin and researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Candace Rondeaux can be reached at 727 771-4307 or rondeaux@sptimes.com
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