The historic Gadsden flag is at the heart of a controversy involving a twelve-year-old boy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The child was removed from the school due to a patch on his backpack featuring the flag. The school district defended the action and claimed that, despite its historical symbolism, it is now considered racist and connected to slavery. Not only is the flag a historical image originally unconnected to slavery, but the action (in my view) contravenes core free speech protections.
The flag was designed by Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina in 1775 as a symbol of the defiance of colonists to British rule. (Some trace the origins of the flag earlier to a design by Benjamin Franklin). Featuring a timber snake, it affirmed the view of the colonists that they would not be stepped on by overbearing British officials and troops.
While Gadsden would become a brigadier general in the Continental Army, he gave the flag to Commodore Esek Hopkins who later adopted it as his flag as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Navy. For the revolutionaries, it embodied the essence of the war: they were the victims of the British overstepping their authority and treading upon the rights of the colonies.
The historic image is still cherished by many, including those who see it as a symbol of defiance of individual citizens to overreaching government action.
That was the view at The Vanguard School in Colorado Springs. A video on the social media platform X, shows the 12-year-old elementary school student being removed from class.
A staff member explained that the image is now deemed “disruptive to the classroom environment” and that it has “origins with slavery.” The boy’s parent is told that the child must remove the patch before he can return to school.
The staffer tells the parent to speak with Jeff Yocum, the director of operations at the school.
Yocum reportedly cited research by a graphic design professor at Iowa State University Paul Bruski, who declared the flag as now a symbol of hate: “Because of its creator’s history and because it is commonly flown alongside ‘Trump 2020’ flags, the Confederate battle flag and other white-supremacist flags, some may now see the Gadsden flag as a symbol of intolerance and hate – or even racism.”
Yocum also reportedly cited a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruling involving a Postal worker, which found that while the flag “originated in the Revolutionary War in a non-racial context,” despite its “historic origins and meaning of the symbol, it also has since been sometimes interpreted to convey racially-tinged messages.”
We previously discussed how the EEOC reinstated a case in 2016 of an employee objecting to another employee wearing a cap with the symbol.
Clearly, symbols can have different meanings for different people. I disagree with Professor Bruski, but respect his right to raise such objections. The question is whether others respect the right of those with opposing views, including viewing this flag as an important and inspiring symbol of the American Revolution.
The censorship of the image strikes me as a clear denial of free speech rights for this student. I obviously do not agree with the historical interpretation, but I am far more concerned about the constitutional interpretation of the school district allowing such censorship of images.
It is an ironic moment for a flag that symbolized the resistance to overbearing government actions and the denial of core rights in the American Revolution.
Update:
Today the school district reversed its decision and will now allow the student and the flag back into the school:
From Vanguard’s founding we have proudly supported our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the ordered liberty that all Americans have enjoyed for almost 250 years. The Vanguard School recognizes the historical significance of the Gadsden flag and its place in history. This incident is an occasion for us to reaffirm our deep commitment to a classical education in support of these American principles.
At this time, the Vanguard School Board and the District have informed the student’s family that he may attend school with the Gadsden flag patch visible on his backpack.
Ironic indeed! I hope that this provided a lesson to the school, school district, and the country at large.
Don’t count on it, a lot of “highly educated” school administrators and teachers are dumber than dirt.
Super Blue Moon Tonight
Someone of the Left will declare it ‘Racist’ for sure!.
Next Blue Moon is May 2026
Mid Term of the Next Presidency!
https://videos.space.com/m/zkOOwQqh/super-blue-moon-in-aug-2023-everything-you-need-to-know
TLDR: Right wing nuts try to turn Rev War era flag into a symbol of hate and and now pissed off that it is seen as a symbol of hate.
Regarding above:
“Sammy” not only has the LGBTQIAEIEIO flag tattooed on his forehead but he also has tattooed on his rearend: enter and squirt with his signature “Svelaz” avatar
😘
I would not get it tattooed anywhere else?
What a dumb comment.
No one has been trying to turn the flag into a symbol of hate . . . until the leftists tried to, as the good professor points out and history tells us.
bring your own crisco
Remember the ‘Reagan Revolution” and how it was so vital to privatize the government? Now corporations run eveything and it’s their right to shut you up and kick you off their ‘platform’. It began when people tried exercizing the 1st Amendment in Malls- remember that? And of course it’s the mall owner’s right to shut you down and run you off to jail. The schools will be privatized and opening your yap about this or any other issue with an opinion that’s too ‘left’ or too ‘right’ for the oligopoly archons will get you the hammer.
Essentially and primarily, these intolerant, violent, police state fascists demand that their definition of what words and symbols mean must be accepted. You don’t need a law degree to figure that out.
If the Gasden Flag had been adopted by the Soviet Democrats’ street thugs in Black Liars & Marxists and Antifa as they rioted, pillaged, rioted and burned their way through dozens of black American areas in 2020 – they would be celebrating it and attacking anyone who questioned it’s use as their symbol.
We are in an era where Silence Is Compliance. We need a hell of a lot more Americans like this Mom who actually have a backbone. A good start to that would be among the faux journalist crowd and timid politicians
What we learn from this is that the Gadsden flag may be “sometimes interpreted to convey racially-tinged messages.” What we must not forget, however, is that most times it is interpreted to convey an enduring and universal desire for self-determination. Ignore that and we risk its loss for any who seek privilege and liberation for their own personal reasons and shared causes. No one who has ever been treaded on wants to ever be treaded on again. Everyone has good reason to adopt the flag as their own regardless of where they stand on the religion of wokeism.
Well, I see the main problem being a 22 year-old being in elementary school. Let’s deal with that problem as well while the young man flaunts his white supremacy and marches down the halls wearing the Gadsden flag patch that only the left finds racist. Since the left finds even coffee is racist, I’m adding it to the list of the things they hope to pry from my cold dead hands.
BTW, since the left also finds education racist, why do they insist on those young and oppressed POC being forced to attend the racist public schools? Shouldn’t those places of oppression be only for the white man (preferably those under the age of 22).
There is a real problem when interpretations by observers, no matter how disconnected from the objective meaning of a message, come to define the boundaries of permissible communications. The origins of this symbol had nothing to do with slavery or the slave trade. That it may be carried by people who might also carry other symbols should not be allowed to alter the public meaning of this symbol. There is a very slippery slope here.
enduring and universal desire for self-determination
Well that proves that it is racist because blacks like Enigma would argue that self-determination is not part of their DNC Plantation contract.
So where is our entertaining, miserable geriatric plantation slave today ? Did Hurricane Idalia sweep him away to a white beach?
Not only is government-censorship (government controlled and funded school) unconstitutional in the United States. Censorship never works, it’s counter-productive and impossible to enforce.
When governments tried to censor music and obscenity in the 1970’s and 1980’s, it simply created code-words that can’t be censored. The ones being censored simply create words that you can’t censor but everybody knows what they mean.
In this example, if this kid was really pushing a hate group agenda – would the police, FBI or regular citizens want to know about it or drive it underground through censorship?
This is counter-productive by a government official, since the only law breaking under the First Amendment is illegality by the official, not the citizens being censored. The kid being censored will sue the school in court and win the case on First Amendment legal grounds. A judge or jury will determine the government official broke the law, not the kid being censored.
This Child is Scared-for-Life. Nothing can fix this for that Child, the person will grow up with this ‘incident’ indelibly ingrained in his psyche for the rest of his life. He’ll be ‘Tracked’ with this ‘incident’ on his record for life. None of which he intentionally asked for. It is because some ‘Adult’ made that decision for him.
There is no amount of ‘Compensation, Reinstatement, or Justice which will fix this.
They Scared him for Life, They can take care of him for Life. Won’t ever happen but its the only ‘fix’ that can be offered.
Kid, be granted Adulthood (@12), move on and don’t look back at these _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.
They ‘Tread upon You’, after you said Don’t – Show them No meant NO.
Culver Military Academy (CMA)
https://www.culver.org/
The Gadsden Flag is one of the most popular license plate themes in Virginia. I’d guess about 1 in 50 cars has it.
“Schools are faced with the task of trying to mitigate attacks from rabid packs of magats, it’s a tough job.”
Yea, those proud boys are everywhere, and they have no constitutional rights. This little magat got his, didn’t he?
Only I have the right to say stupid sh!t, all day, all the time”—-little bug boy
“[S]ome may now see the Gadsden flag as a symbol of intolerance and hate – or even racism,” but only if they’re: boorish nimcompoops, subject to every passing whim of group think; lacking any ability to think rationally (much less independently); and in constant, ceaseless, and continual search of *anything* over which to feign offense. Such a pins-and-needles, constant high-alert quest is, I think, driven by an unfulfilled need to “fit in” with peers irrespective of the quality of those peers. It usually manifests most pronounced in persons who have an innate, primitive aversion to orange men.
“That was the view at The Vanguard School in Colorado Springs. A video on the social media platform X, shows the 22-year-old elementary school student being removed from class.”
-=-
Sorry but someone needs to edit this…
If there’s a 22yr old elementary school student… I’d say we have a bigger problem.
-G
The irony is that many Tea Party supporters were totally silent when the George W. Bush Administration was violating the Bill of Rights and constitutional rights of other people – weakening the constitutional rule of law system which the flag represents.
In October of 2001, just a month after 9/11, the national ACLU warned that weakening the constitutional system could backfire on all Americans – including Republicans. The ACLU also warned that Bush’s Attorney General was creating the environment for a “Cointelpro on Steroids” (covert tactics and practices outlawed in the 1970’s by Congress). Tea Party supporters were silent.
At that time, Bush’s anti-Tea Party policies were publicly known to only be used against foreign citizens. Then major newspapers, including Fox News, revealed the Jose Padilla false imprisonment case.
Padilla was a native born U.S. citizen. Even then Tea Party supporters were totally silent.
Now after January 6, many Trump supporters are being viewed in the same light, using the same unconstitutional authorities, as 9/11 terrorism suspects.
Maybe Republicans should correct those flawed post 9/11 policies now being being used against some Republicans?
Padilla is currently serving a long sentence. Not sure you want to hold him up as an example of how the Tea Party (which didn’t exist back then) is comprised of hypocrites.
Prior to the Bush era, any honest judge would have “suppressed” illegally obtained evidence, when government officials violated constitutional due process. Many Bush voters are the same voters that created the Tea Party.
My point was is when we weaken the “constitutional rule of law” system, it weakens protections for all of us – even Republicans.
The primary purpose of the Bill of Rights is to “restrain” government authority. It should have restrained the Bush Administration from violating core constitutional law.
Since many Conservatives and Republicans were silent back then, now the standard is “the ends justify unconstitutional means”. Government officials don’t view the U.S. Constitution as a limit on their authority.
For example: if you can justify violating the U.S. Constitution over 9/11, you could make a stronger argument violating your gun rights. Based on hard statistics, guns are far more dangerous than 9/11 was.
The U.S. Constitution is a wartime governing charter, designed to be followed during wartime and peacetime. If you want to strengthen the constitutional rule of law, you have to face the facts of 9/11 overreach and correct those abuses. Now we know how flawed the terrorism policies were back then.
There are still today over 1 million persons blacklisted since 9/11, with a terrorism-conviction rate of less than 1/10 of 1% – or a 99% failure rate. Punishing the wrong people makes all of us less safe.
More importantly, most terrorism suspects are now also some Trump supporters. The chickens have come home to roost!
Staunton, let’s agree that Bush went too far in 2001 but of course we had just suffered an horrific attack, an attack that not only killed 3,000 innocents but an attack that shook us to our foundation. I love when people like you attack Bush and hold up the ACLU as a paragon of freedom when in reality it is the left AND THE ACLU that is now the big government censorship regime.
Guys like Staunton worry about Padilla but has not an ounce of sympathy for the only person killed on Jan 6th or for the people sent for long sentences for entering the Capital that day. It is you and your faves that want to crush freedom over ONE RIOT in a year when we had 20 riots causing much more damage and death.
I am so sick of so-called “civil libertarians” and conservatives that still complain about Bush the Younger, Bush the Elder, Reagan and even still Nixon. We saw it with groups like Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan as they stopped protesting Iraq and war the minute a Democrat took office. Obama could drone kill a wedding party and not a peep. Even Biden, the most corrupt man to ever sit in the WH, killed a family of ten riding in a car because he needed military credibility after the incompetence of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Abbey Gate disaster. So Biden killed a FAMILY OF TEN and I bet Staunton never once said a word in disparagement. Nope, Staunton only cares about Padilla, a man that wants us all dead.
Responding to Hullbobby:
You are missing my point altogether.
I am supporting this kids First Amendment right to wear his tee-shirt regardless of what it supports – it could support the Tea Party or the Democrats or Libertarians. So-called Lefties wouldn’t support a kid wearing this shirt.
The First Amendment protects speech that’s unpopular, offensive and even obscene to some people. A Republican may have an entirely different definition of what that means to a Democrat. What you support may be offensive to others and you may be offended by other things. It’s all protected under the First Amendment.
In the American system there are “Voter Issues” versus “Constitutional/Court issues” – voters can vote for anything they please as long as it operates within constitutional legal out-of-bounds.
For example: even if 90% of voters chose to take away women’s voting rights, it’s impossible to do since it’s a “constitutional” issue that is constitutionally out-of-bounds. Not a voter issue.
What about 2nd Amendment gun rights? Is it a “Constitutional” issue that voters can’t revoke? Or is it a “voter” issue that any city or state can revoke at any time in a single election (a constitutional amendment).
If the 2nd Amendment were merely a “voter” issue, guns would totally be banned in some cities today in 2023. Voters of some cities have a super-majority of anti-gun voters.
Constitutional disputes – like gun rights or women’s rights – are settled in the Judicial Branch of government (the court system). The Judicial Branch operates entirely different from the other two political branches (Congress and the WH).
Constitutional rights are protected and advanced using past “constitutional precedent”. The litigants in court argue the merits of each case using constitutional precedent.
If one litigant can prove that a person exercising his or her rights harms or infringes on the rights of another person, the judge or jury may allow minimal regulation on any right. Maybe you can shoot turkeys in rural areas but it’s illegal to shoot pigeons in New York City full of high rise apartments (since exercising the right could harm other people in the process).
After 9/11, which was a legitimate and terrible tragedy, the U.S. Constitution allows the temporary suspension of Habeas corpus during times of chaos or anarchy.
In court the Executive Branch agencies (DOJ, FBI, DHS, NSA, CIA) argue in court that they need to suspend constitutional rights to counter the temporary chaos or anarchy.
After 9/11 and for more than 20 years, Executive Branch agencies grossly exceeded this constitutional suspension of rights.
If Conservatives aren’t appalled by this, my point was the very same Executive Branch agencies could do the same thing to gun rights, property rights or any rights. It’s time for Conservatives to speak up to their members of Congress!
As for the ones trashing the former Staunton Military Academy – Republican Barry Goldwater used to run it! Not much of a Lefty!
When a post claims that the Tea Party was created by Bush supporters, it’s a public indication that your grasp of recent history (and the opinions you base your beliefs on) is tenuous at best. Multiple things can be true at once. But in the case of Bush and the Tea Party, it’s abject ignorance to not be aware that the Tea Party formed within GOP voters to OPPOSE Bush policies.
What kind of education requirements does the Staunton Military Academy have that they’re unaware that the Tea Party had it’s beginnings in opposing Bush’s TARP bailouts? That’s what support for Bush and his policies looks like? Their opposition to his nominating Meyers to the Supreme Court? Their opposition to Bush’s lax and permissive immigration policies was all about Tea Party members being Bush supporters?
They were far more libertarian than they ever were Bush supporters. And far more libertarian than the Useful Idiots that the Libertarian Party of today produces to run as third party candidates in a naive/dishonest belief that they will gain their votes of support equally from otherwise Republican or Soviet Democrat voters.
There’s more than a little irony when anyone carefully chooses to reference the ACLU to backstop their argument. An argument where they carefully cherrypick a few examples to claim it represents a norm – a norm that supposedly is exactly what we’ve been living through over the last seven years.
Anyone seen the ACLU do ANYTHING that would lead them to believe they fight violations of civil rights over that time period.?
The ACLU brought any lawsuits about all those false FISA counterespionage warrants obtained by uttering false documents and perjury by Obama’s last AGs and Directors of the FBI? The police state fascism of the Mueller Investigation – which began with Mueller knowing the first day he took that commission that the “Russia Dossier” was commissioned, paid for, and spread by Clinton, Obama, and Biden?
The quarter million unauthorized searches of personal data by the FBI?
Well… how about the FBI telling social media which news organizations, politicians, and private citizens to censor and cvancel? Anything from the awesome ACLU in response to that?
Does the Staunton Military Academy have an explanation for that?
I have little regard for Bush, other than he was a fairly good wartime president after 9/11. I have contempt for his moral and personal cowardice in allowing the persecution of Scooter Libby when he that was a false prosecution because Colin Powell’s assistant had told the Bush administration it was he who leaked that name, not Scooter Libby. But a few incidents, wrong as they may be, does not equate to the norm that is identical to today… as this Military Academy hopes to accomplish.
(BTW, hear anything from the ACLU in regards to fighting what happened to Scooter Libby? Anything?)
Maybe some Military Academies should choose their heroes far more quickly the next time they launch a cherrypicking raid.
Controversy concluded — school board says it’s OK and a symbol of the American Revolution.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/12-year-old-boy-trouble-wearing-gadsden-flag-patch-wins-victory-school-report
Once again, a kid turned out to be smarter than his teachers.
Not difficult, when the principal qualification for public school teachers these days is unswerving loyalty to the farthest left stances of the Democrat party. That’s a handicap on intelligence of itself.
Why didn’t someone at the school who was questioning the meaning of that patch just ask the 12-year-old student “What does that patch mean”? Then, just listen, and maybe get an honest, non-accusatory convo going? The alienation and paranoia neuroses are a consequence of constant media conflict-theatrics and political militancy. Those mindsets close off normal interaction, inquisitiveness and open-minded, trusting outreach. Oppo-branding becomes the first response. You hate to see adults becoming so defensive, and especially teaching youngsters to indulge primitive suspicions instead of outreach, trust and confidence.
Or the paranoia stems from the fact that government officials want to infringe people’s rights. The people responsible for kicking the kid out of class should be prosecuted under 18 USC 242.
All they see is race all the time. It is a brainwashing over many years that has given fruit to anti-American conduct.
Oh wait, we have to check with the Reverend Sharpton, Hillary, the NYT, and the Washington Post to weigh-in to find out the true meaning of everything. Oh sorry, you cannot display that flag because it’s…well you know. It begins with an R and rhymes with schmachist.
Their so used to shutting down free discussion with their buzzwords, it will continue until we’ve had enough. I guess we still haven’t had enough but when are we going to have enough?
Parents are faced with continuous assault on their children of far left indoctrination.
“For some, like Raef Haggag, 41, it’s a battle he’s been waging for almost half a year. It began for him in February, when he received an email from the Montgomery County public school system informing him that all classrooms—including the first-grade class his daughter attended—would be adding “LGBTQ-inclusive texts approved for instructional use.” The email added: “There is an expectation that teachers utilize these inclusive lessons and texts with all students.”
The list alarmed Haggag. It featured books like IntersectionAllies: We Make Room for All; Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope; Rainbow Revolutionaries: Fifty LGBTQ+ People Who Made History; The Stonewall Riots: Coming Out in the Streets; and Pride Puppy!, aimed at children aged 3 to 5, which asks readers to search for images from a word list that includes intersex, drag queen, underwear, leather, and the name Marsha P. Johnson, a celebrated (and controversial) trans activist and sex worker.”
https://www.thefp.com/p/revolt-religious-parents-montgomery-county
Everything is racist when there’s something to gain.
Selective racism for the same reason.
Whether it’s control, money, power, revolution or anarchy.
Racism has never ceased being a tool.
If I were that Kid, 1st thing I’d do is walk into the School’s office and drop out, then file a Petition to be considered an Adult. Once declared, go back an sue the School, while taking Classes at the Community Collage. When he reaches Age 16, Join the Air Force or Coast Guard Academy. do you 6 years, get out at age 22 (with service time and college education completed), If he choose a Law Enforcement major during that time, them get a job with the California Highway Patrol or similar Post, start collecting 2.5% @55 plus Hazardous Duty Pay (+3%), be some by 55-57 yrs old, collect over Start collecting you Retirement, Reinvest it, Work as a Government Official or Annuitant, make some more money, hit your S.S. Retirement Age 68, sit back and enjoy, and
NEVER LOOK BACK.