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Monday, October 5, 2009
Confederate-flag T-shirts have no business at school
File photo of a Confederate flag hanging in a garage at a private club in LaGrangeville, N.Y. (HOWARD SIMMONS / New York Daily News)

Sometimes silence says it all.

Take today’s decision, without comment, by the U.S. Supreme Court that let stand a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit by students who wanted to wear Confederate-flag T-shirts at their high school.
 
The court’s silence said even freedom of speech has its limits, in particular, when public safety is at issue.
 
The lawsuit in the case of Barr v. LaFon challenged a 2005 policy banning images of the Confederate flag at William Blount High School in Maryville, Tenn.
 
The ban was enacted after a fight between an African American student and a white student that led to racist graffiti being painted on school walls, including a drawing of a noose next to a Confederate flag in the boys’ bathroom.
 
In such an environment it was only a matter time before more violence occurred.
 
The Supreme Court was right to support dismissal of the lawsuit first by a district court and then by the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
 
Wearing Confederate-flag T-shirts at a racially mixed school is like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. You can expect someone to get hurt.
Posted by Inquirer Editorial Board @ 4:05 PM  Permalink | 2 comments
Comments   
Posted 09:33 PM, 10/05/2009
J H
If we're talking about the power of flags as symbols, does the Inquirer Editorial Board believe we should prohibit flag-burning (or flag desecration) as well? I realize the Barr decision relates solely to a school setting (and the facts stated in the opinion are pretty egregious), but the above editorial's simplistic analysis -- if you can call it that -- might apply to, say, burning a U.S. flag at a parade. The Barr holding couches its analysis in the context of the authority of schools to limit First Amendment rights of students; did the Inquirer Editorial Board even consider whether such a holding might apply to parallel situations not involving the easy target of a Confederate flag?
Posted 01:15 AM, 10/07/2009
Falls Ed
School dress codes are important. Clothing is often a distraction in classrooms, especially messages on shirts. That works against keeping a learning environment.
2 comments
About The Inquirer Editorial Board
Harold Jackson, a winner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing, grew up in Birmingham, Ala., during the civil rights movement. He graduated from Baker University in Baldwin, Kan., in 1975, with a degree in journalism/political science. He has also worked at the Birmingham Post-Herald, United Press International, the Birmingham News, and the Baltimore Sun. He was at The Inquirer in the mid-1980s, returned in 1999, and became editorial page editor in 2007.

Paul Davies is the deputy editor of the Editorial Page. His newspaper career has spanned more than 20 years and includes stints at The Wall Street Journal and the Philadelphia Daily News. He graduated from the University of Delaware and received a masters in journalism from Columbia University, where he was also a Knight-Bagehot Fellow. He was born in Philadelphia and still lives in the city.

Tony Auth began drawing while bedridden for a year and a half at the age of five. He graduated from UCLA in 1965 and worked for six years as a medical illustrator while doing three cartoons a week for various college newspapers. Tony has been happily ensconced as The Inquirer’s editorial cartoonist since 1971. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976, and has won numerous other awards, including five Overseas Press Club Awards, the Sigma Delta Chi award for distinguished service in Journalism, and the Herblock and Thomas Nast Prizes. Tony is married to Eliza Drake Auth, a painter of realistic landscapes and portraits.

Trudy Rubin is the foreign affairs columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a member of The Inquirer’s editorial board. Her column appears twice weekly in The Inquirer and runs regularly in many other newspapers around the United States. She is the author of Willful Blindness: The Bush Administration and Iraq.

Kevin Ferris is an assistant editor on the Editorial Board who oversees the Sunday Currents section and writes a weekly column on a wide range of issues. In his 15 years on the board, he’s handled letters to the editor and the Community Voices pages and has been Commentary Page editor. He started with The Inquirer in 1986, and his assignments have ranged from the copy and news desks to the Chester County bureau and the national/foreign desk.

As an editorial writer for The Inquirer for the past two decades, Russell Cooke has written on a wide range of topics covering government, legal, civic and social issues. Before joining the Editorial Board, he was a reporter in the Inquirer’s City Hall bureau.

Editorial writer Dave Boyer joined The Inquirer in 2002. He writes about politics, government, the economy, sports and many other subjects, but draws the line at writing about "Jon & Kate Plus Eight." He has won journalism awards and insists bribery was not involved. A native of Allentown, Boyer graduated from Penn State. He and his wife reside in Center City, where they enjoy strolling and paying the wage tax.

Melanie Burney joined the editorial board in January 2008 after covering education at the Inquirer for eight years. She previously worked at the Associated Press in Philadelphia and southern New Jersey. She is a graduate of Glassboro State College, now Rowan University, and a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Josh Gohlke has been The Inquirer’s op-ed editor since last year, editing the daily commentary page and writing occasional editorials. He came to the Inquirer after eight years at The Record of Bergen County, N.J., first as a reporter covering local and state politics and government and ultimately as the deputy editorial page editor. He also worked as a reporter for several smaller papers in New Jersey and California. Josh was born and raised in Los Angeles and graduated from Stanford University. He lives in Philadelphia.

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