Posted on 06/05/2008 7:30:03 PM PDT by radar101
At least one of the Bloomington Kennedy High School students suspended Tuesday, June 3, for displaying a Confederate flag had been warned about doing so after an earlier incident.
Rick Kaufman, Bloomington Public School's executive director of communications, said three students who participated in the flag display have been suspended and won't be permitted to take part in Kennedy's graduation ceremony tonight, June 4, at Target Center in Minneapolis.
At least one of the suspended students had been warned against displaying the flag following a previous incident, said Kaufman. He declined to give details but said the student must have known the display would be considered more than a prank.
"My understanding is that there was a conversation after a previous incident," he said. "I don't think they can plead ignorance or that they didn't know what they were doing."
The three boys who were suspended will receive their diplomas - though not at the traditional commencement exercises, said Kaufman.
"They've earned their diplomas and they'll receive their diplomas," Kaufman said.
"We also believe that the display of the Confederate flag may also have violated district policy with regard to discrimination," Kaufman said.
"The courts have ruled that the Confederate flag is a symbol of hatred, bigotry and racist and has the potential to be discriminatory in nature," he said.
"Regardless of their intent, they violated the standards of student behavior that we have set for them," Kaufman said. "They violated the student conduct code; specifically, those students had the intention to create a disturbance in the educational process," Kaufman said.
State data practice laws prohibit the district from identifying the three boys, he said.
About 30 students gathered outside Kennedy June 4 to chant their support for the suspended students. Some had signs that read, "Let Them Walk," while others had written that slogan on white T-shirts, said Kaufman.
Told it was time to come inside and rehearse for the commencement ceremony, the students took off the shirts and put away their signs.
The demonstration was within limits of student behavior, said Kaufman. "They weren't doing anything that would bring them further trouble," he said. "The rehearsal came off without any trouble at all."
The rehearsal came after a meeting attended by parents of at least two of the boys, Superintendent Les Fujitake and Steve Hill, principal of Bloomington Jefferson High School.
Hill was asked to attend to demonstrate that the students would have faced an identical sanction had the incident happened at Jefferson, Kaufman said. The students received no harsher penalty because the principal at Kennedy, Ron Simmons, is black, he said. That assertion was passed around following the incident, said Kaufman.
"We wanted to make it perfectly clear that the penalties would have been the same," he said.
Some students, including the three who received suspensions, considered the incident a harmless prank, Kaufman said.
"They were remorseful," he said. "They admitted that it wasn't a very smart thing for them to do."
Lol, it would just kill the liberals that the Confederate flag is displayed officially in Mississipi, because it’s part of our state flag.
Not a National flag.
It was a battle flag.
The libs in Hennepin County need to take a high school history course.
If he brought in a Communist (Soviet Union) flag, no prob.
A Communist flag would be ok. But a Confederate flag? Oh noooooooooo!
The Principale is an idiot. I have never heard of the following:
“The courts have ruled that the Confederate flag is a symbol of hatred, bigotry and racist and has the potential to be discriminatory in nature,” he said.
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