California Principal Regrets Decision
[Guest post by DRJ]
The Morgan Hill, California, principal whose assistant principal kicked out five high school students for wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo now says he is sorry for the action:
“Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez threw the students out for wearing what he called “incendiary” apparel on Cinco de Mayo.
Turns out, school officials just acted too “quickly.” Perhaps even without thinking.
Live Oak High School Principal Nick Boden accepted the blame while apologizing Friday, saying, “In this situation, I may have moved too quickly in drawing the line of when to take preventative action.”
Officials had cited concerns that fights between students could erupt because of the “incendiary” images of the U.S. flag on the holiday.
“This was never about whether students were allowed to wear patriotic clothing on our campuses. They can. It was about ensuring that our high school campus was orderly and safe,” Wesley Smith, superintendent for Morgan Hill Unified School District, said Friday at a press conference.”
The same Top of the Ticket link also includes Roger Ebert’s reaction, if you care.
— DRJ
“…Turns out, school officials just acted too “quickly.” Perhaps even without thinking…”
Gee! Yah think?
AD - RtR/OS! (31bef0) — 5/8/2010 @ 2:39 pmThe American flag is incendiary. In America.
Please, DRJ, permit me to say “Motherfucker” just this once.
nk (db4a41) — 5/8/2010 @ 2:43 pmDoes it matter that it was the American flag?
Assume half the students wear symbolic speech (e.g. Mexican flag?). Some other students wear symbolic speech to piss them off. Can the administration tell the second group to remove the symbols?
If you say “Only if the speech is the American flag” then it is classic content based restriction on speech.
tomhynes (2e563b) — 5/8/2010 @ 3:23 pmGreetings:
I think it’s time for Senor Miguel Rodriguez to spend some time on the beach and I don’t mean in Acapulco.
It’s also time for those students who walked out of school to demonstrate their citizenship values to be introduced to the school’s discipline process.
11B40 (d96b6e) — 5/8/2010 @ 4:05 pmThe apology only comes because kicking the four Caucasian boys out of school (a feat that would make any Liberal Progressive proud) for wearing American colors raised too much of an uproar.
Metallica (c398e9) — 5/8/2010 @ 4:23 pmNowadays when a student is kicked out of school for saying something or wearing something that says it, it’s never about content. It’s always about safety. The school administrators have shown how to shut down dissent by claiming safety as a pretext, just like Bill Clinton and others have tried to do with the Tea Party.
PGR (c77050) — 5/8/2010 @ 4:57 pmI kind of enjoyed seeing the Mexican kids marching around with Mexican flags in protest. I think the principal got a bit of heartburn seeing that. The organizers of the immigrant rallies in LA have learned to bar all Mexican flags from those protests. I remember the time that a Mexican team played the US in soccer at the LA Colosseum. The Mexican flag carrying fans booed the American team. That’s the biggest problem the illegal immigrant advocates have. Keeping their clients from showing they consider themselves Mexicans and the southwest as Mexican territory.
Mike K (2cf494) — 5/8/2010 @ 5:12 pmThe only thing he and others like him regret is it would be an open and shut lawsuit against them if the students or their parents filed one. This is what libs and lefties do, they know the would get sued if the parents take action, so they do it and hope an apology will make it right until the next time and the next school does the same thing.
We need to stop being so nice when they pull this crap and make them live up to their own rules
Karma (e92e70) — 5/8/2010 @ 6:09 pmSomebody needs to be fired, and/or a bunch of Board members need to lose their seats.
AD - RtR/OS! (31bef0) — 5/8/2010 @ 6:13 pmVery true, Mike K. What you’ve described has also occurred at boxing matches, accompanied by thrown cups of beer.
GeneralMalaise (3d45b5) — 5/8/2010 @ 6:19 pmAssistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez threw the students out for
I didn’t realize the person who initiated the action was of Latino background. That and, most importantly, his likely being a liberal pretty much guarantees he’d have acted differently if the kids were wearing clothing with the flag of Mexico on it. IOW, he’d either have been much less bothered by such a situation or, worse of all, he’d have been outright happy about or supportive of it.
Mark (411533) — 5/8/2010 @ 6:23 pmHe’s not sorry about the decision, he’s sorry that his “good example” is being spoiled.
htom (412a17) — 5/8/2010 @ 6:30 pmI would like to know the disciplinary action taken against the Hispanic students who ditched class en masse to march to the school district offices in protest. There was obviously no hasty decision made in their case, and now that there has been plenty of opportunity consider the most fitting option, I think the public should hear what the principal’s decision is.
Dana (1e5ad4) — 5/8/2010 @ 7:07 pm“Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez”
Race first, country second. Liberals are at fault for starting the racial spoils game, conservatives are at fault for playing along (Thomas, anyone?). We have only ourselves to blame.
JHE (9284aa) — 5/8/2010 @ 7:53 pmI want to see Señor Rodriguez’s green card.
the friendly grizzly (660a3a) — 5/8/2010 @ 8:17 pmI cannot imagine this happening in any other country in the world. What other country is so self-loathing about it’s flag and what it represents as to consider it an incendiary symbol?
Mr. Rodriguez is evidence that an education does not make one intelligent.
MU789 (cd6b1c) — 5/8/2010 @ 8:40 pmHonestly, it did not click with me until now that vice-principal Rodriguez was a pepper-belly. That has to be the worst possible kind of racism when you can’t even see their race, just the stupid things they do.
nk (db4a41) — 5/8/2010 @ 9:07 pmMU789 – The English flag (not the Union Jack but the Cross of St. George) has been banned in places and at certain occasions in England due to the fact that it resembles (in some peoples minds) the Crusaders cross and might offend Muslims. They have even gone so far at times as to hide the Union Jack because it incorporates the cross of St. George.
As Henry the V cried as he rallied his men outside Hafluer, “For Harry, England and Saint George!”
Have Blue (854a6e) — 5/8/2010 @ 10:25 pmThe ‘symbolic’ irony is it is possible the “t-shirts” themselves, bearing an image or likeness of a U.S. flag, were not manufactured in the United States, which is a quiet outrage in its own right. And wearing the flag as ‘clothing’ may be considered a technical violation of the voluntary U.S. flag code. Such are the times we live in. Maybe the kids should start wearing U.S. Keds, if they still make’em.
http://www.ushistory.org/betsy/faq.htm#q031
DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 5/8/2010 @ 10:51 pmDCSCA – I fail to remember your concern for the US Flag Code when we have discussed burning, walking on, or otherwise desecrating the US flag. Maybe if you went after Bill Ayers for his little photo montage standing on Old Glory we would be more inclined to take you seriously.
I cut people slack in this on intentionalism grounds. If the action is taken with the intent to honor the flag or the ideals it stands for then it is fine with me even if it is a technical violation of the flag code. I have corrected people and businesses who have made good faith errors. (The most common was when the flag is hung vertically or horizontally on a wall or in a window display the blue field should be on the right – where a persons right shoulder should be when facing out – either from the wall or out through the window. This was a common mistake right after Sept 11, 2001.) (And giving such advice at that time was part of my job, not just being a busybody.)
Have Blue (854a6e) — 5/8/2010 @ 11:05 pmSorry, Disco Stu, but you are (SHOCKA!!!) wrong AGAIN! There is NOTHING in the U.S. Flag Code that says you cannot wear a t-shirt with the image of the U.S. flag upon it. The code clearly states that you cannot wear the flag itself as clothing.
They are two different things. Get a clue.
Icy Texan (d75ab1) — 5/9/2010 @ 3:36 amUp here, we avoid the issue with red, white and blue bunting and such, and the flag always on its own, draped or flying, but I have no problem with its image on a pin, or patch, or on a shirt. It’s a question of intent, I think, and if somebody had it sewn on the seat of his jeans I would not consider it disrespectful to kick it.
nk (db4a41) — 5/9/2010 @ 3:55 amMeanwhile, film critic Roger Ebert continued to discuss the situation over Twitter.
On Thursday, he recommended that the offending students “share a lunchroom table with those who wear a hammer and sickle on 4 July.”
He received plenty of grief and general mockery for that statement in the blogosphere, so he took to Twitter Friday explaining he “did NOT equate the American Flag with the hammer and sickle. Some people can’t read, or deliberately falsify.”
Seeming to be frustrated, Ebert later said: “I’ll explain this one more time: Those five kids wore matching t-shirts IN ORDER to deliberately insult Mexican-Americans.”
— First of all, he assumes that the intent of the students wearing American Flag t-shirts was to “insult” Mexican-Americans. Secondly, he assumes that said Mexican-Americans would BE offended by the display.
Is there ANY proof for EITHER assertion?
Icy Texan (d75ab1) — 5/9/2010 @ 4:13 amOf course not. But that won’t stop Roger, because he knows. He’s married to a black lady; therefore, he KNOWS when the intent (there he goes about intentionalism, again) is to offend someone of a different race/ethnic backgound.
WARNING. Safe for work but very sad image of Roger Ebert after his battle with cancer. http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310
I’m willing to cut him slack for what has happened to his body and mind.
nk (db4a41) — 5/9/2010 @ 4:21 amI cannot imagine this happening in any other country in the world. What other country is so self-loathing about it’s flag and what it represents as to consider it an incendiary symbol?
Netherlands obviously:
http://volokh.com/posts/1107806873.shtml
I know you people here keep thinking I’m a leftie, but I’m sincerely 100% with the banner-wearing kids on this, as any people with basic understanding of what freedom means should.
Triumph (b66fe4) — 5/9/2010 @ 4:40 amRodriguez should be fired for so easily assuming Mexican kids are mindlessly violent.
Richard Aubrey (b60efc) — 5/9/2010 @ 9:41 amIt’s stereotyping. Racist.
The right to not be offended trumps all other rights. Freedom of speech be damned!
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (9eb641) — 5/9/2010 @ 9:56 am#21-There is NOTHING in the U.S. Flag Code that says you cannot wear a t-shirt with the image of the U.S. flag upon it.
http://www.ushistory.org/betsy/faq.htm#q031
“Are flags on T-shirts, ties, etc., really flags? Yes. According to the Flag Code, a flag is anything “by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag.”
The words “flag, standard, colors, or ensign”, as used herein, shall include any flag, standard, colors, ensign, or any picture or representation of either, or of any part or parts of either, made of any substance or represented on any substance, of any size evidently purporting to be either of said flag, standard, colors, or ensign of the United States of America or a picture or a representation of either, upon which shall be shown the colors, the stars and the stripes, in any number of either thereof, or of any part or parts of either, by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag, colors, standard, or ensign of the United States of America.”-
Source: Flag Code, Section 3
“Therefore, a flag includes any representation of it of any substance, with stars and stripes of any number. This would include T-shirts and ties.”
The Flag Code states that the flag should never be worn. (Section 8d): “The flag should never be used as wearing apparel.”- source, http://www.ushistory.org/betsy/flagcode.htm
DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 5/9/2010 @ 5:43 pm#20 I fail to remember your concern…
‘Nuff said.
Flag burning, at least to this writer, is an expression of free speech, albeit distasteful, and in the end, not particularly effective at swaying or supporting a position. More an act of desperation to fuel attention. But it makes for colorful if-not-incendiary television and can certainly fire up the emotions of the intended target audience.
DCSCA (9d1bb3) — 5/9/2010 @ 6:04 pmDCSCA – So by your light the US Flag Code and the Constitution (or the intellectual intersection of the two) forbids a person who wishes to honor the flag and the country and the ideals it represents from wearing, not the actual flag, but a “representation” of it. However at the same time a leftist who despises the freedom and liberty that the flag represents is entitled to burn the actual flag as a protest, and your only complaint is that his protest will be sad, pathetic and pointless.
Have I accurately described your views on the subject?
Have Blue (854a6e) — 5/9/2010 @ 9:34 pmIt SAYS that you shall not wear THE FLAG as apparel. What’s so fricking hard to understand about that?
Icy Texan (15edd3) — 5/10/2010 @ 3:23 amWhy is this teacher still employed at LAUSD?
http://realdebatewisconsin.blogspot.com/ 2010/ 05/ stolen-occupied-mexico.html
PCD (1d8b6d) — 5/10/2010 @ 5:51 am