Posted on 06/10/2005 7:51:03 AM PDT by robowombat
Ban on Rebel flag items is overruled
JUDGE SIDES WITH STUDENT IN W.VA. CASE
By Brian Farkas
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A federal judge has ruled a high school dress code that banned items bearing the "Rebel flag" is overly broad and violates students' rights to free speech.
But U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr. warned students if they use the Confederate battle flag as a symbol to violate the rights of others, "the very ban struck down today might be entirely appropriate."
Copenhaver's ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Hurricane (W.Va.) High School senior Franklin Bragg, who was ordered to serve two in-house detentions last November for wearing the T-shirt with the flag's image.
The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia after attempts to resolve the issue with school officials failed.
Some view the flag as a symbol of hate and racism. Others see it as honoring Southern history. Bragg has said he wore the T-shirt to show his Southern heritage.
Bragg sued Principal Joyce Swanson and the Putnam County Board of Education, arguing he had worn similar T-shirts and a Confederate flag belt buckle before Swanson became principal last fall.
Bragg also argued other clothing with political and advertising slogans was permitted.
Swanson modified the 1,000-student school's dress code to prohibit clothing that featured "profanity, vulgarity, sexual innuendo, and racist language and/or symbols or graphics ... This includes items displaying the Rebel flag, which has been used as a symbol of racism at high schools in Putnam County."
Putnam County, which is between Huntington and Charleston, is 98 percent white, according to the 2000 census. About 0.6 percent of the county's 51,589 residents are black.
In his ruling, issued Tuesday, Copenhaver wrote that courts have moved to ban such images in schools where racial tensions exist. Testimony at a hearing last month did not show such a climate existed at the Putnam County school.
"To suggest a ban is warranted simply because some associate it with racism proves too much for First Amendment purposes," Copenhaver wrote.
The dress code is unconstitutional because it issues an outright ban on "items" displaying the flag, he wrote.
Although the policy may have been written with the best intentions, "the offending portion unjustifiably silenced a significant amount of permissible speech in contravention of the First Amendment," he wrote.
Swanson said she had not seen the ruling and declined to comment.
Copenhaver's ruling dismissed the board of education from the case.
Though they usually are, the actions of the ACLU are not always bad. Sometimes they protect the civil liberties of folks who are not rabid leftists.
Excellent! Free speech trumps "I don't like it".
It'd be best if the little sucker wasn't in a government school in the first place.
By the way, there's a reenactment in Statesville, at Fort Allen, this weekend. I'll be there to ask General Jackson for the four years he owes us. (Napolean said, "A man has but seven years for war. General Jackson owes us.)
Oops, misspelled Bonaparte's first name. My apologies.
Most of West Virginia fought for the yankees in the Civil War. The state was created out of Virginia in 1863, during the Civil War. If the kid weren't in government schools he probably would know that and wouldn't be wearing "rebel" anything.
Doesn't mean he doesn't have southern heritage. My family goes back 5 generations in Kentucky, yet my great-great-great-grandfather lived in Tennessee during the first part of the Civil War.
Wait - I didn't get the memo. Do we hate judges today?
When they screw up, always.
This guy got it right, you can't give him heat for that.
Judges should be like umpires, you shouldn't notice them when they do the job right, but you do flip out when they screw up, except in our cases, our "umpires" also make the rules on the fly.
Yep, and it was done unconstitutionally.
U.S. Constitution, Article IV, Section 3, clause 1
New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
Sure, I know that, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 West Virginians fought for the South. I just saw an opportunity to take a swipe at the dismal history lessons of government schools.
Depends on how long he's sentencing me for. If he wants to go outside federal guidelines and just give me probation, I'll take him out for a beer. If he wants to sentence me to the full 375 months that my crimes warrant ... you bet I hate him.
Just kidding, I haven't committed any crimes that anyone's caught me for.
People on this website don't need a "memo" to know what to think. It's Liberal websites that use memos.
The federal government recognized the loyalist legislature at the Wheeling Convention as the legitimate government of Virginia; when the loyalist government voted to permit West Virginia to secede, Congress considered that to satisfy the requirement of Art. IV §3.
Are you trying to say that an individual who lives in West Virginia in 2005 could not have had an ancestor that fought under the Confederate Battle Flag in 1864?
If the wearing of the Confederate Battle Flag is truly about heritage, then that heritage would be the heritage of his family during the Civil War and not the State he was born in 125 years later.
Chances are that not a single guy that you see wearing kilts and playing bagpipes in the parades or at Police funerals in your State was ever born in Scotland. However, their ancestors were.
I would think that most WV public schools teach the history of the formation of their state. I grew up in Kentucky and WE learned that in 8th grade.
I know you're only laying out the history, but just because the federal government "recognizes" something does not make it correct. The proper government of Virginia was the one elected under the auspices of the state constitution. The Wheeling Convention doesn't fit the bill.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.