Last week, San Benito High School officials told four students
wearing T-shirts with the flag of Mexico on them to turn them
inside out or go home. The officials cited school policy against
wearing clothing adorned with flags, saying they are
disruptive.
Last week, San Benito High School officials told four students wearing T-shirts with the flag of Mexico on them to turn them inside out or go home. The officials cited school policy against wearing clothing adorned with flags, saying they are disruptive.
The decision garnered wide attention for its obvious First Amendment implications, but the most puzzling aspect to us is the assertion that flags on T-shirts are disruptive in the first place.
We fail to see how an article of clothing sporting a flag can be anything other than a teaching opportunity. Some say that certain flags might be gang symbols, but so are the colors blue and red. Do we tell people the only primary color they can wear is yellow?
If the Fourth of July fell during the regular school year, we probably would not even be having this discussion. Imagine telling people they couldn’t wear an American flag T-shirt to school if Independence Day were on, say, Oct. 18. The ACLU would intervene in a heartbeat, and they would win, and they’d be right.
And that begs the issue. School officials are getting very bad legal advice, in our opinion, if they think this rule will pass constitutional muster.
We are sympathetic with the attempt to draw sometimes very fine distinctions between acceptable and disruptive dress. Printed profanity, or obviously provocative symbols such as Nazi insignia, seem reasonable candidates for banning.
But we’re talking about the flags of the member states of the United Nations, some of whom have soldiers supporting American troops in Iraq. Is it reasonable to ban the wearing of clothing adorned with their flags – or for that matter the flag of Mexico? No.
There are many misconceptions about the flag and its proper use. A poll released in January by the Knight Foundation revealed that three-quarters of American teens believe it is against the law to burn the flag as an act of protest.
With the flag becoming a symbol not only of patriotism, but of the poor state of civics instruction in this country, San Benito High School students would be better served by taking every opportunity to understand the flag itself, its history and the constitutional issues surrounding it.
Better then that the school encourage the wearing of flags. They might even consider a Wear-A-Flag day and use the opportunity to teach world geography and culture, subjects about which American high school students are notoriously ignorant.
Imagine how little currency a potential gang symbol would have when wearing it becomes diluted by the presence of hundreds of flags from countries around the world.
That would be a dramatic demonstration of the idea that the best way to combat “disruptive” speech is with more speech.
