Two high school students at St. Anthony’s High School in Long Island have been suspended indefinitely after they walked into an after-hours sporting event wearing a Confederate flag draped over their shoulders. We recently discussed another suspension of a student involving a Confederate flag. I have the same free speech concerns in this case. The question is whether other flags would also be confiscated and the student suspended in my view. While I can certainly understand how this flag represents racism for many, others view the flag as a symbol of Southern heritage and heroism. I often see them in Virginia and recoil a bit due to the association with slavery. However, my concern is where the school is drawing the line on speech.
Brother Gary Cregan, principal of St. Anthony’s High School in South Huntington, stated that “[t]he African-American students who immediately saw it really exercised heroic restraint and fortunately a teacher immediately confiscated the flag and took the students out of the gym.” They were initially suspended for 10 days and will now be barred from returning. Cregan explained to the parents that the flag is a symbol “designed to revive past injustices or to inflame discrimination or racial intolerance, [and] is completely unacceptable and profoundly offensive.” Cregan rejected any claims that the flag represents Southern history or heritage: “I find it just very hard to even imagine why any student in 2014 would even consider or think that a Confederate flag would be anything other than a symbol of hate.” Other students supported the school and said that what matters is that some people are offended by the flag.
I find Cregan’s motives laudable and I also believe that the other students should be commended for showing restraint. However, I am unclear as to the rule applied in this case? Would the school have reacted the same way with a Soviet flag or a Chinese flag or other flags that are viewed any many to represent oppressive histories? How about a rainbow flag viewed immoral by some or an Israeli or Palestinian flag that would inflame contemporary passions? I can understand a ban on any flags or posters at sporting events, but the selection of some symbols raises question of content-based censorship. The flag clearly (and understandably) represents slavery and racism to many. However, it also represents different things to different people. Respected scholars like Civil War historian Shelby Foote have noted that the flag traditionally represented the South’s resistance to Northern political dominance. As discussing in PBS interview, he was sensitive to how many of his friends viewed it as a symbol of racism but he did not share that view. Others view it as a symbol of state’s rights or Southern culture or opposition to speech codes or politically correct sentiments. The point is that, if some flags are allowed, there are a variety of symbols that are viewed as offensive by different groups.
The school is not a state school and thus not subject to the limitation of the First Amendment. Yet, that does not mean that it should engage in arbitrary limitations on speech. I went to the website and I could not find any published rules of conduct. The question is whether there is a rule addressing after-hours events. If the rule is not clear, the question is whether it should be made more explicit as to any and all such symbols — and whether it is fair to suspend the students indefinitely. Teenagers do stupid things and I would not be surprised if this was an effort to get a rise out of everyone. However, in the official statement below, the school does not quote or cite the rule used against the students.
What also concerns me is the reference to punish two students who “blatantly disregarded the principal’s request to discontinue the use of social media to inflame discrimination in the school community by displaying an inappropriate picture and comment.” The school simply states that “These students have been appropriately acted upon.” I fail to see why a school should attempt to censor or block students in discussing this controversy — and disagreeing with the school’s actions. Even if you are comfortable with suspending the boys with the flag, these students appear to be engaging in pure debate over the merits of the rule and the response of the school. The school states “As a Catholic and Franciscan school, Saint Anthony’s will always demand acceptance and respect for all races, religions and cultures.” However, the school should also demand tolerance for different views and the protection of free speech for both its students and faculty. Ordering students not to discuss a controversy (and perhaps not challenging the school’s actions) will do little to quell the controversy. What it will do is to force the debate into the shadows will it will fester and deepen. Declaring “thou shalt not disagree” will not produce agreement — only forced silence. [There are reports that two students may have worn black face in messages on the social media. While there remains the issue of the regulation of after-hours, out-of-school communications, that is obviously a very disturbing matter. However, the general order not to discuss the controversy on social media on the issue remains highly problematic.]
The Confederate flag has not been treated in the federal courts as a form of hate speech and continues to appear in a wide variety of public locations and private displays. Ironically, for some of those students on social media, this controversy may make the flag a symbol of self-expression or resisting compelled speech codes.
What do you think? Was indefinite suspension and the bar on social media discussions warranted in this case?
DATE: April 16, 2014
RE: Confederate flag incident
From: Brother Gary Cregan, OSF, principal,
Saint Anthony’s High School, Huntington, NY
On the evening of Wednesday, April 9, 2014 at Saint Anthony’s High School, Huntington, NY, during a supervised intramural European Handball game with multiple teams, a small number of students displayed a symbol of hate – the Confederate Flag. Upon entering the gym, the flag was confiscated by faculty moderators, and the students were told to leave the property.The two individuals who were responsible for bringing the flag to school, and for wearing it into the gym, were immediately given a long term suspension the next day. After further discussion and consultation, it became necessary to impose additional disciplinary action. In addition, two other students blatantly disregarded the principal’s request to discontinue the use of social media to inflame discrimination in the school community by displaying an inappropriate picture and comment. These students have been appropriately acted upon.
Saint Anthony’s is committed to addressing the issue of racial intolerance with faculty, students and parents through education, awareness and dialogue in an ongoing basis. The use of any symbol, either historic or current, which carries a meaning designed to revive past injustices, or to inflame discrimination or racial intolerance is completely unacceptable and profoundly offensive. As a Catholic and Franciscan school, Saint Anthony’s will always demand acceptance and respect for all races, religions and cultures.
# # #
Contact:
Christina Buehler
Director of Communications
E-mail: cbuehler@stanthonyshs.org
Source: CBS
The increased incarceration of black youth has been brought up as an example of Racist Republican Agendas.
There is a legitimate debate on what to do with drug addicts. Incarceration doesn’t cure them. Forced drug rehab does not cure them. Should laws become stricter to make drugs less available, drugs which ruin lives and tear apart families as users succumb to addiction? Should laws become milder, to keep addicts out of prison? Whether an addict is in prison, rehab, or on the street, life as a crack or meth addict is bleak. It is not much of a life at all until or unless the user achieves sobriety, and even then, addiction can return at any time.
What decimates the black community? From what I have read, the two highest risk factors for incarceration are single motherhood and the foster care system. When a woman becomes a single mom, especially at a very young age, it typically spells the end of her education. It becomes a lifelong struggle, and her child or children fare worse in school, get less help with homework, live in poorer circumstances, are more prone to use drugs and abuse alcohol, more prone to join a gang, get into foster care, and go to jail. There is just no way around the statistics. Being a single mom puts up immense obstacles for her children to overcome.
The US has invested billions of dollars in Welfare, after-school programs, Head Start Programs, Food Stamps, and all sorts of benefits systems. But the Government makes a poor husband and father. And outsiders cannot lecture on change. At some point, the black community has to decide that it wants better for its daughters. And those young women have to want better for themselves and their future families. One of my favorite authors, Pearl Cleage, often incorporates black women deliberately becoming single moms into her stories.
I don’t believe that Republicans frame black men to put them in prison. And anti-drug laws are intended to help Americans avoid the wreck of a life that an addict ekes out.
David, Then you obviously hate women, minorities, and like to pee on the homeless when they are asleep on the street.
“It always interests me when people say it was a Southern strategy. The fact is that folks in the North, the South, the East and the West sometimes did this.”-Ken Mellman
Yep.
David:
“CRA actually started with Kennedy.”
Yep.
“A racist Democrat”
Yep.
All over a half a century ago. Seems like just yesterday.
“Johnson followed through to get the bill passed into law”
Way understated. Johnson was probably the best arm twister ever in the oval office. He was Senate Majority leader. He worked hard to get those big majorities. Twisted arms in both parties.
“The bottomline is that both Republicans and Democrats worked together to get the CRA passed into law.”
Well, this is quite a different statement from what was implied before.
“Why can’t we just all agree on that?”
Because you, and others, were implying that it was the Republicans who got it passed. It wasn’t. In fact, you just admitted that it originated with a good ol’ Taxachusettes Democrat.
Did most folks do the right thing at the time? Yes.
Did the Republican party turn the south to Republicans in almost every national election since? You bet.
Is it a coincidince that the regions of the country most heavily associated with racism historically, for ONE BIG OBVIOUS reason, have voted for Republicans ever since Johnson turned to Bill Moyers and said “We’ve lost the south for a generation”?
Happy Holiday.
And thank you, Professor, for helping me out and being patient. I’m not a lawyer. I take civil rights very personally, as I believe everyone should.
Scott wrote: “… it originated with a good ol’ Taxachusettes Democrat.”
Actually, Kennedy was a tax cut Democrat. Kind of unheard of these days.
“… the president proposed in 1963 to cut income taxes from a range of 20-91% to 14-65% He also proposed a cut in the corporate tax rate from 52% to 47%.”
http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/JFK-on-the-Economy-and-Taxes.aspx
Yes I agree with the professor…. Stay with the theme of the thread…. Don’t make it personal… Now if we could just stop the hatin……
Paul, The only prez vote I ever really had my heart into was Jon Anderson, an Independent.
David, Happy Easter. Nobody likes ham or lamb in my family, I am cursed w/ picky eaters. So, we’re having steak. I spent Easter in Vegas once. I felt like a true sinner,
Nick – technically the War on Poverty continues, it is America’s longest running war. And we are not winning. More are in poverty now then when the program started.
David:
It’s true – racism is thinking ill of someone solely on the basis of race or ethnicity. Which means that the Reverend Wright is a racist. Jesse Jackson has made racist comments. Any jokes about whites are racist. Not voting for someone because he or she was white is racist.
People say it is OK to be racist against anyone who is not black, but I cry foul. Racism is wrong, and there is no excuse on this planet Earth that will make it right. We can go back to the Stone Age with great ills humanity has done against each other. The sins of the ancestors does not excuse wrongs against descendants today. Many, many white people died to free the slaves. Widows and children were left without financial support when the breadwinner were lost. Whites were willing to pay with their lives and the ruination of their families to force the South to give up slavery. They paid the freight on correcting the wrongs of others. If Lincoln had not been assassinated, I have no doubt that Civil Rights would have come about much sooner.
So, if anyone makes broad statements about who “the racists” are voting for, I think we unfortunately have a large pool of citizens for whom judgements on people are still made based on race and ethnicity. There is racism in Mexicans against South Americans, in blacks against whites, Latinos, and Asians, as well as in Caucasians against other races. It’s sad. Culture and ethnicity are interesting, and skin color is an evolutionary balance between optimizing vitamin D production and protection from UV rays. It’s time we stop making every issue about race, and just focus on people instead.
Karen, I am an avid reader on Churchill and I’m certain the quote is Any person who is not liberal when young, does not have a heart. Any person not conservative when they grow old does not have a brain. I am not aware of any doubts he said it.
Hi Dredd:
“Exit polls in the last presidential election show that Obama won the female vote (55%), Romney won the male vote (52%); Romney won the white vote (59%), Obama won the Black (93%), Hispanic (71%), and Asian (73%) vote. In the age categories Obama won the 18-29 (60%), 30-44 (52%), while Romney won the 45-64 (51%) and 65+ (56%).
Additional statistics at that site can be viewed here.
The tea-leaves in those statistics indicate which way the wind is blowing.”
You keep turning a discussion about censorship into a partisan attack. I really don’t want to quarrel personally. Instead I would like to address some points you have raised.
I find it ironic that your exit poll breakdown followed your excerpts from studies on self-deception, and how it can affect internet searches.
1) Democratic politicians and the mainstream media have declared that the Republican Party is racist. The Democratic voters (which include a large proportion of minorities) believe it, ignoring any evidence to the contrary, or failing to research for themselves. (Your study excerpts are really apropos.) For example, when Democratics were asked what they thought of the Tea Party, they universally declared that it was racist. When they were asked for a single example of racism, not a single one could come up with ONE example. They deceived themselves into believe it was racist, and did not bother to research the issue for themselves.
2) “Show me a young Conservative and I’ll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I’ll show you someone with no brains.” (There is some controversy as to whether or not it was Churchill who coined this phrase.) The young typically pay little to no taxes, and typically vote for higher taxes. Democratic candidates and measures typically call for higher taxes and more “free stuff” (that they never can seem to pay for and always end up calling for more money). By the time those same people are in their forties, they’ve held a job, paid taxes, and struggled to make ends meet with what’s left of their paycheck after Uncle Sam takes its cut. Some have started businesses. They understand there is no “free stuff”. We all end up paying for it, and the bill can be expensive. By that time, more have switched to conservative leanings, especially fiscal conservatism.
3) Do minorities vote Democrat because the Republican Party is racist? Or is it because the Democrats tell them Republicans are racist, and, more importantly, offer them lots and lots of stuff?
Anyone who has worked in a research environment understands the difficulty of interpreting data. Are conservatives aging out, a dying breed? Or do the young become conservative as they grow older?
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/309602/letter-young-voters-dennis-prager
I need to constantly remind ideologues that I AM NOT A REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT. I voted for Obama once, wised up after that. I have never voted for a Republican for president. This does not compute for lovers of steak tartare.
Just to remind everyone again – I am a registered Independent, have been for 30 years or more. In the last two Presidential elections I voted for my favorite write-in candidate, Mickey Mouse, who I thought would do a much better job than anyone running.
Paul wrote: “… I am a registered Independent… In the last two Presidential elections I voted for my favorite write-in candidate, Mickey Mouse, who I thought would do a much better job than anyone running.”
ROTFLOL! Well, I am unsurprisingly a member of both the Tea Party and the GOP. I voted for Republican candidates for President in every election since Jimmy Carter, starting with Ronald Reagan.
Paul, this is meaningless, and now you’re just trying to Gish Gallop away from all my many points. To you, this is a forum to post one meaningless out of context piece of evidence after another, while ignoring all the (edited) attempts to have a meaningful back and forth.
I lived in one of the most liberal sections of Hollywood California for years. I had a UNION brother who lived very closeby who was and is a rabid Republican. You can no more say that every Boston Southy Irish is a Democrat any more than I can say that every white guy in Alabama is a Republican.
Paul, this is getting tiresome. Someone says “Republicans were the ones who passed the CRA” I show that that in fact, Republicans ALONE could not have passed it, that large majorities of BOTH parties voted for it, and you’re argument is that, well MORE republicans voted for it as a percent.
You know what all that leaves out? IT’s HISTORY! 50 years ago. A lot has happened since then. The liberal Republicans of the North East are gone, and had more in common with my progressive politics than you do. On many issues, not just race, I might add.
I also should add that only one party has people now who go around saying they would repeal parts of it, in order to allow private business owners to discriminate if they wanted.
Your argument leaves out the last 50 years for good reason. It’s full of shameful pandering by the Republican party to the Dixiecrats in the south. And it worked. Very well. That’s why, despite protestations to the contrary, Ronnie went to Philadelphia Miss and gave a speech about states rights. It’s the mother of all dog whistles, with some hippie punching to boot.
Supak – http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/14/cynical-race-baiting-will-fail-to-save-the-democrats.htmlf
Scott wrote: “Paul, this is getting tiresome. Someone says “Republicans were the ones who passed the CRA” I show that that in fact, Republicans ALONE could not have passed it, that large majorities of BOTH parties voted for it, and you’re argument is that, well MORE republicans voted for it as a percent.”
If I remember right, the CRA actually started with Kennedy. He approached Republicans about his desire to secure a civil rights act. Republicans then drafted the bill. A racist Democrat on the Rules Committee worked to keep the bill bottled up indefinitely. After Kennedy’s assassination, Johnson followed through to get the bill passed into law. The bottomline is that both Republicans and Democrats worked together to get the CRA passed into law. Why can’t we just all agree on that? And if this is true, then we should all agree that neither the Republican party nor the Democratic party are racist. There are some racists in both parties, but neither party has a racist platform.
For a film on racism within the black community watch Spike Lee’s 1988 classic School Daze.
Just as a point of no interest, Barry Goldwater was a founding member of the Phoenix Chapter of the NAACP and all of his department stores were integrated.
Party registration[edit]
As of August 25, 2010, voter registration in Massachusetts is as follows:
Voter Registration and Party Enrollment as of October 13, 2010[5]
Party Number of Voters Percentage
Democratic 1,528,974 36.48%
Republican 474,798 11.33%
Unaffiliated 2,162,840 51.61%
Minor Parties 24,295 0.58%
Total 4,190,907 100%
See also[edit]
Annie – I am grown up. I am not getting a denial from you, but I am getting some running around the subject. 😉 Should I take that as an implicit yes?
Supak – even you have to be amazed at the voting pattern on the CRA. Without the Republican (racist though they are according to you) it would not have gotten passed. By percentage, a higher percentage of Republicans voted for the Bill than Democrats. Damn, those racist Republicans.
Now, I contended early on, that just like only Nixon could go to China, only Johnson could have passed the CRA. I give him a lot of credit for doing it, even if it took extortion. I don’t like Johnson as a person, but I think he is a hell of a politician, he knew where all the bodies were buried.
Studies like the one you have mentioned on implicit racism or the other one are designed to show that everyone is a racist. That is how they are designed. That is why psychology is coming more and more into disrepute. First homosexuality is a mental disorder, now it is not. Bipolar was a mental disorder, now it is chemical imbalance. Narcissism has disappeared as a disorder in the new DSM, since so many people thought Obama had it. It will probably come back once he is out of office. I am not a fan of Scientology, but I am beginning to think they are right about psychology and psychologists.
Scott, it will be exceedingly evident how blacks will vote, how women will vote and how Asians and Hispanics will vote. And then there will be another “autopsy” to try to figure out what happened.
Nick: “there is a substantive discussion going on here.”
Yeah, it involves you calling me a Shiite Liberal.
I posted the fact that the crack law was passed by HUGE majorities in both house. More Democrats voted against it than republicans, but that was only like 15 Democrats and one repub voting against it.
Reagan’s War on Drugs was huge at the time. Everyone wanted on board.
And when it comes to overturning that old law, HUGE majorities voted for the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act. The one notably person against it was Lamar Alexander who argued we should keep them. Lamar is a Republican.
And go look at polling on making medicinal or recreational pot legal.
It’s not the Democrats who like to punch hippies.
Deletion notice: I have again deleted comments that are continuing a rather juvenile tit-for-tat by a couple of posters. I understand that some people feel that the rule is being applied unfairly. I do not have a dog in any of these fights. I virtually never delete criticism of me or the blog. However, the constant juvenile attacks on individual posters has to stop. For those complaining about their deletions, these were not close calls. Despite repeated (if not a record) number of deletions tonight, this thread continues unabated. It is truly becoming creepy. We get it. You do not like how the policy is being enforced. You don’t like particular posters. Time to move on. Please stop the personal attacks or just go on to the great variety of sites that reject civility rules and even relish this type of commentary. We do not. I would seriously like to enjoy the Passover and Easter weekend with my family. This is a site reserved for people who want to discuss the issues and not personalities with other posters.
jonathanturley wrote: “I would seriously like to enjoy the Passover and Easter weekend with my family. This is a site reserved for people who want to discuss the issues and not personalities with other posters.”
The professor’s comment here resonates with me. It is holiday time, so I’m planning on taking a break for a few days. Happy Holidays everyone.
I have 2 siblings in Boston. Irish vote Dem, PERIOD!! It was poor Irish turnout and yuppies voting Rep. who got Romney and Scott Brown elected. Keep them coming Mr. Supak, you’re just throwing batting practice fastballs. And, I’m half Irish and spent many nights drinking in the Combat Zone, Fenway, The Garden, etc. St. Patty’s I would go to NYC.