Tennessee disgrace

As recently reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Raw Story, Fox News, and numerous other small and large market media outlets, school officials in Dickson County, Tennessee have banned all flags, including the American one, from student display on school grounds. The wholesale banning is said to have been in response to the Confederate Flag controversy. 

A similar blanket flag-stifling was undertaken at UC Irvine, not long ago. That unpatriotic endeavor attracted abundant media attention and public condemnation, and was promptly scrapped. But in its moment, it did also attract scattered professorial support in other regions, indicating that hostility toward pride in singular national identity does have some nationally-dispersed adherents.

The American flag is, of course, a symbol of the nation whose taxed people pay the salaries of these same professors and school board officials. Many Americans died for this country's flag, and for its values - like freedom of conscience and of expression. 

Dickson County officials have effectively spat on their memories and sacrifices by banning the Stars and Stripes. And it's further reported that school officials there have threatened to punish students who carry the American flag onto school grounds.

In news accounts, this unconstitutional and morally ugly crushing of students' free expression has been defended by one Steve Sorrells, reportedly Dickson County Director of Student Services. I suspect that as rightly critical press attention increases, Sorrells will stop responding to reporters' inquiries and seek refuge behind some faceless office door. 

The matter of students' First Amendment protection is a settled one - in favor of students. Constitutional experts and law professors discussing this issue often cite the 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District decision. That case, set in my own home state of Iowa, concerned anti-war expression. 

Political viewpoints, be they popular or unpopular, enjoy constitutional protection. That's as true for students as for any other U.S. citizen. 

Clearly, displaying a flag is about as political as speech can get. And no reasonable person would claim that a symbolic representation of our own nation's flag constitutes a disruption of the learning environment schools are expected to provide.

I would greatly enjoy seeing this all end up in a courtroom. Quite frankly, in a PC era that values "hate speech" restrictions and in which Tennessee school officials (and who knows what others) feel comfortable treading on the Stars and Stripes, I'd say America needs refresher courses in both free speech and national pride.