Should The Student Who Wore A Confederate Flag Attire Be Suspended?

How do you feel about the student who was recently suspended for wearing a Confederate flag attire to school? Do you think it was right for him to get suspended? Lets take a look at the situation.

A student at Fayetteville High School in Fayetteville, Ark., has been suspended for wearing — and refusing to remove — a Confederate flag-themed shirt and face paint in support of a pro-flag movement called #HistoryNotHate.

Several students showed up to school in apparel featuring the controversial flag and were told by the administration to remove it, but one did not comply and received an out-of-school suspension.

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Now the teens say they are upset with the way school officials are handling the situation, and they defend their right to dress in Confederate flag themes.

“None of us are racist. None of us are doing it for hate,” “It’s Southern pride, and we’re not gonna take it off for anyone. This is our flag. It’s Arkansas. This is the South.”

But school officials say they aren’t taking a political stance and are not trying to impede anyone’s rights as an American. Instead, they’re trying to keep the peace, they say. “We’re not trying to trample on their First Amendment rights.”

But one teen believed that the confrontation between students and authorities got heated. Fayetteville High School student Morrigan White told local news station KNWA that he painted the Confederate flag all over his peers’ hands and faces, “wherever they wanted it,” and that during their lunch period, they were approached by police, the principal, the vice principal as well as school deans, “and they were all telling us we either had to wash it off or go home.”

But the students refused, and Starnes was the one to speak up. “I told him I wasn’t going to take it off,” he said to KNWA. “So then I went to the office, had a discussion and then the head principal ended up calling me racist,” he says.

According to the school district’s rules, “attire that disrupts the educational process or otherwise interferes with the rights or opportunities of others to learn or teach [is considered improper and unacceptable].” Dostal says the Confederate flag falls into that category and “can cause a substantially disruptive environment for some of our students.” He says that by banning the flag on campus, he’s keeping all students safe.

EXCLUSIVE: Students at Fayetteville High School wore confederate flags in support of #historynothate. I met up with the students who share why they're upset with how the administrators are handling the situation. Tonight at 9 on @Fox24News & 10 on @KNWAnews pic.twitter.com/6zXWQ7bcri

— Katie Davila (@KatieeDavila) January 23, 2019