Students told not to fly Old Glory over fears of post-election backlash

AP

There’s trouble brewing in Lincoln, Nebraska where students at a public school were told they could not fly the American flag – because it might spark some sort of post-election backlash.

Several of my astute readers sent me a link to a story in the pages of the Lincoln Journal Star titled, “Safety concerns prompt school to ask students to not fly flags.”

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On Veterans Day someone had pulled Old Glory off a flagpole on a students’ pickup truck at The Career Academy.  It’s unclear who was responsible for desecrating the flag, but the owner of the truck was concerned about a “potentially disruptive climate.”

The school district said that prompted the school’s administrators to “review the situation and make a determination that there would be potential for continued disruption.”

The Journal Star reported that administrators asked students not to fly the flag “out of an abundance of caution.”

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Although, they did say they would “consider letting students fly the flags on another appropriate day, such as Presidents Day,” the newspaper reported.

As you might imagine, the flag ban did not go over very well in Lincoln – home to many God-loving patriots.

“We have heard from many students, families and community members who were concerned about taking away those rights,” the district said.

The outrage prompted the school district to hold a press conference on Nov. 17 to retract the ban and apologize.

“We want to make this very clear: Lincoln Public Schools students are free to fly their flags on their cars, and leave the flags on their vehicles during the school day,” the district said in a prepared statement.

They also reminded the general public of their patriotic bona fides – from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to promoting Veterans Day.

“LPS believes in the teaching of the tenets of the Constitution and all it represents,” they stated.

“Hindsight would suggest that this could have been handled in a different way and we are amending our original decision,” the district said. “We respect the right for students to display their flags. We should not have asked our students to remove them.”

The district went on to say their flag ban “could easily and understandably have been misinterpreted as infringing on the rights of freedom of expression and speech.”

There was no misinterpretation --- because it was an infringement – a shameful infringement.

Instead of cracking down on American patriotism, how about cracking down on people who desecrate the American flag? How about more discipline and less capitulation? Is that too much to ask from a public school these days?

Then again, this is the same school district that had a problem with teachers calling children boys and girls. They wanted the teachers to use more gender inclusive language.

I wonder what the gender inclusive word for stupid is – because there’s a whole mess of it in the public education system.