Posted on 08/15/2008 4:24:22 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
CLINTON, Tenn. — Likening the case to the racial discord of the mid- to late 1950s in Anderson County, county school officials on Thursday night said this week's U.S. federal court hearing over a student's right to wear the Confederate flag symbol is being funded "by outside sources."
"Regardless of what you read there's a lot more to it than our enforcement of our dress code," John Burrell, Anderson County Board of Education chairman, said during the county school board's regular monthly meeting.
At the meeting's start, Anderson County school board members spent approximately 20 minutes in an executive session teleconference with their attorney, Arthur S. Knight III of Knoxville. An executive session allows for the elected officials to go behind closed doors and out of the public eye to confer with their attorney.
Knight reportedly was updating the board members on the status of a federal case now under way against the Anderson County school system. The hearing is the result of a free speech lawsuit filed in 2006 by Tom DeFoe, who was then an Anderson County High School student. According to The Associated Press, 18-year-old DeFoe, earned a certificate of completion from the county vocational school last fall.
DeFoe alleges school officials violated his right to free speech, due process and equal protection, when they suspended him more than 40 times for wearing T-shirts and a belt buckle with the Rebel flag emblem.
DeFoe's lawsuit is challenging the county school system's quarter-century old ban on the display of the Confederate flag, as well as Malcolm X or gang-affiliation attire.
This case, Director of Schools V.L. Stonecipher said Thursday night, has made the county's school administrators think about the system's policies.
"There're no winners or losers in this case," Stonecipher explained to board members. "It just shows the importance of board policy and consistency in policy.
"I think our Code of Student Conduct is second to none," the schools' director said.
"You don't realize how things can be scrutinized and what can happen," he added.
"It's being funded by outside sources," Burrell said of the lawsuit.
According to a November 2006 story published in The Oak Ridger, DeFoe's lawsuit was filed by an attorney employed by the Black Mountain, N.C.-based Southern Legal Resource Center Inc.
"In 1956, an outsider, John Kasper, came in and created a problem," Stonecipher said, referring to the racial unrest in Clinton that resulted in the 1958 bombing of Clinton High School. "Then, in 2006, it's an outsider coming in looking for a landmark case."
Kasper was among those who opposed the court-ordered desegregation of Clinton High School in August 1956.
The Associated Press reported Thursday night that a three-man, five-woman jury in Knoxville deliberated a second day Thursday but was unable to return a verdict and will have to return Friday.
At one point, the jury asked U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan for help defining some words key to the case. The judge said they consider his instructions "as a whole" and not word by word.
After more than 10 hours of deliberation, they sent a message to the judge late Thursday. "We cannot reach an unanimous decision. What do we do?"
In addition to asking the jury to resume work Friday, the judge asked the lawyers and their clients to consider the possibility of resolving the case without a jury verdict or accepting a majority verdict instead of an unanimous one.
"I don't see how it is taking so long to figure out that I am right," DeFoe said of the jury, The Associated Press reported. "It is the Confederate battle flag. It is the South's flag. And students should be able to wear it."
DeFoe's lawyers are pointing to related court rulings to argue that past racial violence at Anderson County High School, which DeFoe attended, "does not necessarily prove that the symbolic expression (of the Confederate flag) will cause substantial disruption in the future."
There was no evidence DeFoe's apparel directly led to racial incidents at Anderson County High, where one out of 1,160 students is black, or at the all-white vocational school.
But there was concern that it could raise tensions there and at another county school -- the more racially mixed Clinton High, the first school desegregated by court order in the old South in 1956.
His lawsuit is the latest in a string of cases across the South since the 1990s challenging dress codes that banned Confederate flag apparel. Most have been dismissed by judges or settled out of court.
"Getting to where we have gotten with this case is in and of itself just an incredible victory," said Van Irion, DeFoe's attorney.
"I think when you stand up like Mr. Irion did (in closing arguments) and say, 'The whole world is watching you,' I think the jury really (understood)," said Knight, the school board's attorney. "I sympathize with their plight."
The 2006 lawsuit was filed against Stonecipher, Burrell, the School Board, Anderson County High Principal Greg Deal, Merl Krull and Sid Spiva, both vocational school officials. Spiva has since retired.
Leean Tupper can be contacted at (865) 220-5501. Donna Smith of The Oak Ridger and Duncan Mansfield of The Associated Press contributed to this story.
How about a Lenin/Soviet Flag Shirt?
That is exactly my point. It is more likely that a school would allow that kind of crap while at the same time banning the Confederate flag.
Perhaps public schools should just mandate uniforms and be done with it.
It's people who claim the heritage of the Confederacy that most often are focused on the past. But if somebody claims to focused on the past it helps to be as knowledgeable of the past as possible. And I think a broad claim about "southern heritage" in a region that generally hated the Confederacy should be addressed.
Do you feel the need to make reparations for slavery, too?
The proper time for reparations ended over a century ago. The USA missed the boat on that one. Guilt and victimhood and privilege is not inherited in this country. It's not insignificant that titles of nobility are prohibited in the Constitution.
Not all oppression is federal. There was no pay up or go to Tuscaloosa extortion racket under the federal government in the 1860s. That money making machine was a "blessing" of Confederate local government. Our federal system is based on a divided sovereignty with the Constitution being the supreme law. Our system is not based on total elimination of the proper place of Washington DC so that local government can run amok.
In my opinion (since we’re throwing opinions around), the war was primarily over the Tenth Amendment, which DC found inconvenient.
I think Washington's problem was not with the 10th Amendment, but with the Confederates' interpretation of the 10th Amendment.
While you are obviously entitled to opine as you see fit, the Vice President of the Confederate States of America would tend to put a bit different spin on it than do you. And since we absolutely recognize that when Dick Cheney speaks, he speaks for the administration, so too did Alexander Stephens.
A few gems from the speech: (emphasis mine)
The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution—African slavery as it exists amongst us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.
Even when Stephens attempted to clarify his remarks he did not back away from that statement:
Slavery was without doubt the occasion of secession
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=76 http://www.adena.com/adena/usa/cw/cw223.htm
Given the sad state of public education, local history is just one subject that HS kids are generally ignorant about. But that doesn't mean a knowledge of history is not important. History is more than trivia and objective historical facts are more valuable than a feel good "heritage" based on misconceptions.
Rebel Flags are a sign of the south. I’m a northern girl but love everything about the south and dream of spending my retirement years there. I was amazed at the difficult time I had finding a decent size flag when I was recently visiting. I dont see it as racist and would fly it with pride.
Now, if someone wore a Rebel Flag to represent the North, that would be a sign of historical ignorance. But I don't see it as being a sign of historical stupidity if a kid wears the flag to represent the South, just because he happens to do it in a county in the South where most people didn't want to secede. Some people there did want to secede, and lots of people have moved around. Not to mention that even the direct descendants of Unionists might feel some sympathy for the Confederacy after seeing the damage the federal government has done to our culture over the past few decades.
Heck, we're on the verge of having same-sex “marriage” foisted on us by the courts, using the Union-imposed 14th Amendment and the same “sociological” reasoning used in the Brown decision. It might be reasonable for a lot of people nationwide to start thinking more positively about the Rebel Flag.
We should be teaching our kids that it is NOT words, images, and the like, that should be feared (and then banned by government decree), but rather, ACTIONS taken against us by anyone - including our government (local, state, or federal).
We now live in a society where people are too sensitive to mere WORDS, and are looking for any reason to sue for some PERCEIVED injustice.
What's the REAL harm in wearing a shirt, or belt buckle with a Confederate battle flag image on it?
There is NO actual harm.
The fact is, that image means different things to different people.
Is what a black person thinks about it more important than what a white person thinks about it?
You'd think that the Civil War (in the South, many of us call it "The War of Northern Aggression") was fought ONLY about slavery, and, unfortunately, that's what our kids government school books reflect.
Other things have been demonized as being hateful and insensitive by an all too sensitive, mainly liberal, black population (only approx. 14 percent of our population - you'd think they were the majority), and magnified and repeated by a sympathetic (I would say PATHETIC) left-wing mainstream media.
Why, you'd think that black people were the only ones EVER hanged using a rope with a hangman's noose. Never mind all of the white (and members of other races) horse thieves,criminals, etc. which have been hanged throughout our history.
It IS time for a PUSH BACK against all of the mindless, nonsensical PC that has enveloped our country.
I hope this boy, his family, and his lawyer/s are successful in their push-back.
Respect for authority is one thing, but when the government, be it local, state, or federal, tries to trample on my 1st Amendment, 2nd Amendment, or any other rights - as enumerated in the Bill of Rights - stand the f*** by.
“Which means he was told 40 times his attire violated the dress code. I’d say this kid definitely lacks respect for authority.”
So in your world the young man should have just submitted to the pressure of the school’s authority to limit his free speech.
Do you value your own freedoms?
At what point would you take action to protect your own rights and those of others, and what would that action be?
This young man went to the courts to secure his (and our) freedoms, and seems to have a fair chance of winning.
PS - I doubt you will answer the second question above directly, because I doubt you have really thought this through.
Oh, I think history and local history is important, but how your county voted (versus your state or your region) seems pretty trivial. I had a junior high school teacher in the 60s who taught us a lot about local history (I went to school at Farragut, so I am local to you), but there were any number of things she didn’t teach us... one being how the secession vote went in the county. We understood East Tennessee was split and generally leaned toward non-secession, but once the war started, all of Tennessee was in the Confederacy. There were Tennessee units and East Tennessee units on both sides in the war.
Beyond that, I don’t think this kid’s decision on wanting to wear a confederate battle flag is based on the historical significance of what county he is in. It certainly wouldn’t be mine.
There have been school dress codes for more than 50 years. Do you think the Founding Fathers wrote the First Amendment with t-shirts and belt buckles in mind? Or do you think that MAYBE it was meant to cover speaking against the government without fear of reprisal?
This young man went to the courts to secure his (and our) freedoms, and seems to have a fair chance of winning.
This young man went to court so he could wear a belt buckle and t-shirt that was against school dress code.
And yes, I have thought this through. I pick my First Amendment battles carefully and it isn't belt buckles and t-shirts.
So I was correct - you managed to answer my direct questions with only a question.
“Do you think the Founding Fathers wrote the First Amendment with t-shirts and belt buckles in mind? Or do you think that MAYBE it was meant to cover speaking against the government without fear of reprisal?” - DJMWW
Yes, I do think the founders intended for free speech to include messages printed on t-shirts, belt buckles and the like. Political speech is covered no matter what form it takes.
Care to actually answer my question to you above, or are you still going to avoid it?
Schools in this country really need to go with uniforms to nip nonsense like this in the bud.
And you demean the message and intent of the First Amendment by applying it to something frivolous. The kid lived in an area that did not vote for secession and sided with the north but he has a right to play Johnny Reb. Give me a break!
How his county voted 150 years ago is totally irrelevant.
This young man is using the appropriate tool, the courts, to seek remedy for what he and many others believe is a violation of his right to free speech.
This situation is being handled lawfully and correctly - I have no problem. You seem to have a problem that this young man did not quickly submit to the pressure of his scchool.
Still avoiding my question?
And I did answer you. You just didn't like the answer. I said :And yes, I have thought this through. I pick my First Amendment battles carefully and it isn't belt buckles and t-shirts.
At what point would you take action to protect your own rights and those of others, and what would that action be?
Oh and, you answered NONE of my questions.
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