Posted on 01/15/2009 11:05:27 AM PST by matt1234
MARYSVILLE, Wash. - At least three students were suspended from Marysville-Pilchuck High School after displaying the Confederate flag.
Ray Hauser, spokesperson for the school district, said one incident occurred in October, and another just last week.
The students say the flag is a symbol of culture and heritage, but the school district says it's also a symbol of hatred.
Hauser said the students are aware of school policy, and when the administration learned of the displays, the students were called in for a discussion and suspensions occurred immediately.
Eighteen-year-old Ethian Allen is a senior at the school. Over the past few months, he and his friends have been flying the Confederate flag on their cars. To them it's not a symbol of racism -- but of heritage and the "redneck culture," which they embrace.
"I think as a right of free speech we should have whatever flag we want," he said. "Nobody has come up to us and said it offends them in any way, besides the administration."
After they brought it on school grounds, a few of them got 10-day suspensions.
"There are two different sides to the Confederate flag, one of heritage the other a connection to a symbol of hatred," said Hauser.
The district says its policy on the flag stems from a series of incidents back in 2004. A cross burning at the home of a local African American pastor sparked a series of confrontations at the high school involving the Confederate flag. So the so-called Southern Cross was banned. It's even written in the school handbook.
"While we want to recognize a student's right to free speech, we certainly have the first duty to make sure all our students are safe," Hauser said.
The students say no one has complained to them and they feel the school policy is not enforced fairly.
It may be a right of free speech, but the district cites case law which allows them to ban symbols from school grounds if they interfere with safety and the learning process. They say the Confederate flag is a prime example.
It may fly again!
I remember peace symbol wearing hippies spitting on soldiers returning from viet nam...so to me the peace symbol is a symbol of hatred...will they also bad that?
I wonder what they would say about the “Don’t Tread On Me” flag?
bad = ban
‘After they brought it on school grounds, a few of them got 10-day suspensions.’
Like daddy always said, boy, if your going to be dumb you’d better be tough.
They knew this would be the result of their action.
I have nothing but respect for that flag, because I actually know what the Civil War was about when it started, not what it was spun at the time, and down the decades since.
but these kids just pushed, and got pushed back.
Would it be OK for the students to wear ‘Che’ t-shirts?
Think this thread is related to this one somehow.....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2165199/posts
If they had the Mexican or Hamas flag it would have been fine.
I find a parallel to the current behavior of Islamists.
In November 1861 the first 120 Confederate battle flags were given to Army of Northern Virginia regiments by Robert E. Lee. Three days following surrender, they were gathered by General Joshua R. Chamberlain who said, “Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level to ours, they waked memories that bound us together as no other human bond. Was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union, when so tested and true?”
However, the KKK turned this battle flag into a symbol of hate, murder and slavery. Southerners said nothing in rebuke or shame, and the men of Appomattox were forgotten.
Equivalent silence from Muslim religious and political leaders to pronouncements and actions of Islamic Fundamentalists creates a similar deafening roar. Fundamentalism such as currently expressed by Hammas, Hezbollah, and al Qaida represent barbaric, ghoulish heresies to be repudiated and vigorously opposed, or they will dominate the Muslim faith.
Instead Islamists have habitually found compelling attraction to the 11th century teachings and actions of Hassan ben Sabah. He contributed a new idea to Arab political science with a reinterpretation of murder as a legitimate instrument of statecraft. Any sociopath who could claw his way to the top had ready apologetics to feed an addiction to power as insidious any compulsion to alcohol or pornography. Concurrently, the extraordinary Arab achievements in sciences, mathematics and medicine came to an abrupt end as Sabah’s philosophy arose.
Losing a portion of our military heritage pales in comparison to dismemberment of a religious faith. Fundamentalists contemplate violent, repressive governments consuming tribal and family life for over a billion Muslims, while feeding their addiction.
I myself was a spitee! Such lovely children!!!
Wonder where the ACLU is?
Who decides what is a symbol of hate?
Um! They ain’t even south of the Mason/Dixie line so what the hey-diddley-doo-dah do they know about the Confederate flag! At least it makes sense if you raise the flag here in Ole Virginie.
School administrations like most bureaus and such always act like the only tool they have is a hammer and all problems look like nails. Idiots.
Thanks for your service and I’m sorry to hear about the treatment. I’m a vet as well, but missed the viet nam era by a few months and was sent to Germany instead...only job available during the Carter administration.
Theoretically, thanks to Dred Scott, all territories were slave territories. I'd be surprised if any of the 13,000 or so people living in the territory in 1865 owned any though.
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