Posted on 08/15/2008 4:24:22 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
CLINTON, Tenn. — Likening the case to the racial discord of the mid- to late 1950s in Anderson County, county school officials on Thursday night said this week's U.S. federal court hearing over a student's right to wear the Confederate flag symbol is being funded "by outside sources."
"Regardless of what you read there's a lot more to it than our enforcement of our dress code," John Burrell, Anderson County Board of Education chairman, said during the county school board's regular monthly meeting.
At the meeting's start, Anderson County school board members spent approximately 20 minutes in an executive session teleconference with their attorney, Arthur S. Knight III of Knoxville. An executive session allows for the elected officials to go behind closed doors and out of the public eye to confer with their attorney.
Knight reportedly was updating the board members on the status of a federal case now under way against the Anderson County school system. The hearing is the result of a free speech lawsuit filed in 2006 by Tom DeFoe, who was then an Anderson County High School student. According to The Associated Press, 18-year-old DeFoe, earned a certificate of completion from the county vocational school last fall.
DeFoe alleges school officials violated his right to free speech, due process and equal protection, when they suspended him more than 40 times for wearing T-shirts and a belt buckle with the Rebel flag emblem.
DeFoe's lawsuit is challenging the county school system's quarter-century old ban on the display of the Confederate flag, as well as Malcolm X or gang-affiliation attire.
This case, Director of Schools V.L. Stonecipher said Thursday night, has made the county's school administrators think about the system's policies.
"There're no winners or losers in this case," Stonecipher explained to board members. "It just shows the importance of board policy and consistency in policy.
"I think our Code of Student Conduct is second to none," the schools' director said.
"You don't realize how things can be scrutinized and what can happen," he added.
"It's being funded by outside sources," Burrell said of the lawsuit.
According to a November 2006 story published in The Oak Ridger, DeFoe's lawsuit was filed by an attorney employed by the Black Mountain, N.C.-based Southern Legal Resource Center Inc.
"In 1956, an outsider, John Kasper, came in and created a problem," Stonecipher said, referring to the racial unrest in Clinton that resulted in the 1958 bombing of Clinton High School. "Then, in 2006, it's an outsider coming in looking for a landmark case."
Kasper was among those who opposed the court-ordered desegregation of Clinton High School in August 1956.
The Associated Press reported Thursday night that a three-man, five-woman jury in Knoxville deliberated a second day Thursday but was unable to return a verdict and will have to return Friday.
At one point, the jury asked U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan for help defining some words key to the case. The judge said they consider his instructions "as a whole" and not word by word.
After more than 10 hours of deliberation, they sent a message to the judge late Thursday. "We cannot reach an unanimous decision. What do we do?"
In addition to asking the jury to resume work Friday, the judge asked the lawyers and their clients to consider the possibility of resolving the case without a jury verdict or accepting a majority verdict instead of an unanimous one.
"I don't see how it is taking so long to figure out that I am right," DeFoe said of the jury, The Associated Press reported. "It is the Confederate battle flag. It is the South's flag. And students should be able to wear it."
DeFoe's lawyers are pointing to related court rulings to argue that past racial violence at Anderson County High School, which DeFoe attended, "does not necessarily prove that the symbolic expression (of the Confederate flag) will cause substantial disruption in the future."
There was no evidence DeFoe's apparel directly led to racial incidents at Anderson County High, where one out of 1,160 students is black, or at the all-white vocational school.
But there was concern that it could raise tensions there and at another county school -- the more racially mixed Clinton High, the first school desegregated by court order in the old South in 1956.
His lawsuit is the latest in a string of cases across the South since the 1990s challenging dress codes that banned Confederate flag apparel. Most have been dismissed by judges or settled out of court.
"Getting to where we have gotten with this case is in and of itself just an incredible victory," said Van Irion, DeFoe's attorney.
"I think when you stand up like Mr. Irion did (in closing arguments) and say, 'The whole world is watching you,' I think the jury really (understood)," said Knight, the school board's attorney. "I sympathize with their plight."
The 2006 lawsuit was filed against Stonecipher, Burrell, the School Board, Anderson County High Principal Greg Deal, Merl Krull and Sid Spiva, both vocational school officials. Spiva has since retired.
Leean Tupper can be contacted at (865) 220-5501. Donna Smith of The Oak Ridger and Duncan Mansfield of The Associated Press contributed to this story.
How ‘bout an example - just one.
Sorry Dude but I’m not playing your game. As I said, it’s make believe and until faced with a specific situation, it would all be just bragadacio and empty words.
From Above:
“Do you think the Founding Fathers wrote the First Amendment with t-shirts and belt buckles in mind? Or do you think that MAYBE it was meant to cover speaking against the government without fear of reprisal?” - DJMWW
Yes, I do think the founders intended for free speech to include messages printed on t-shirts, belt buckles and the like. Political speech is covered no matter what form it takes.
(I did directly answer your question.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++
And-
I would support the malcom x free speech, just as I would the Skokie - march decision.
“it would all be just bragadacio and empty words” - DJMWW
No different from your other posts.
This however shows me that, in principle, you don’t know where you stand on protecting our basic freedoms. Frankly, I’m not surprised.
3
out
Are you a libertarian?
You actually have no idea who I am or what I’ve done. But you seem to put great stock in empty words make believe situations. I find that sad. I refuse to make claims that I cannot prove or support, I refuse to pretend.
No - I don’t put any stock in anything you have posted.
As far as political parties go: I am un-affiliated.
As far as priciples go: conservative, individualist, constitutionalist, anti-federalist, libertarian - all seem to fit in one way or another.
Thanks for asking.
I am done replying to you.
OUT
So you’re taking you’re make believe scenaios and leaving. Awwww. BYE.
It certainly is an interesting irony. But beyond that, you can't simply say that the flag is a symbol of NASCAR or country music or Southeastern Conference Football or hating Washington and ignore the history behind it or dismiss it as irrelevant. If kids knew that some of their ancestors regarded that flag as a symbol of oppression they might think twice about wearing it.
the school also bans Malcolm X and gang attire.
seems pretty equally applied IF they also ban the mexican flag or illegal immigration symbols of aztlan.
So where do you stop? No designer labels (a symbol of economic status over your less priveleged classmates), no baggy pants, no jeans with holes slashed in the knees, no steel toed boots, no dyed hair, no earrings in places other than ears...
See, it sounds silly once you start going down this road, but a lawyer in a courtroom can make a case for all this. The government administers education with taxpayer funds, therefore everthing can be reasonably enforced since someone might be offended at someone’s else’s display of individuality.
Yes, I know, it just spirals into stupidity. I agree.
This is why it’s always best to keep government as small and weak as possible in every area of our lives and allow free people to remain free.
Historical preciseness and accuracy does indeed matter. The myth of a solid united South under the rebel banner is about as useful as some currently popular tales of non existent kingdoms in the old world. Facing historical reality in the face and learning from it is always best.
Growing up in the South, I used to have had feelings of tying regional identification with the Confederacy. But the more I read about the abysmal misgovernment and injustice that the CSA visited upon southerners of all races, I realized that the Confederate regime was a very defective symbol of the region.
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