A Colorado high school student has reportedly been kicked out of class for having multiple patches on his backpack, including one of the Gadsden flag, sparking an uproar on social media.
The 12-year-old Vanguard School student was ordered to remove his flag patch, which features a coiled rattlesnake and the phrase “Don’t tread on me” on a yellow background, before he was allowed to return to class. , according to images of a meeting between the boy’s mother and an administrator posted on X, formerly Twitter.
The public charter school administrator tells the boy’s mother that she cannot display the patch because of the flag’s “origins with slavery and the slave trade,” video of the meeting shows.
However, the mother counters that the origins of the Gadsden flag actually date back to the Revolutionary War, not slavery.
The seventh grader also reportedly had other patches depicting semi-automatic weapons, which the school said violated its dress code policy.
The clip of the meeting was posted by conservative author Connor Boyack and quickly went viral online, attracting attention across the country and sparking a national debate about the history and relevance of the flag.
Meet 12-year-old Jaiden, who was kicked out of class yesterday in Colorado Springs for having a Gadsden flag patch, which the school says has “slavery origins.”
The school principal said by email that the patch was “harmful to the classroom environment.”
Receipts in the 🧵 pic.twitter.com/qQ8jK1zSpR
— Connor Boyack 📚 (@cboyack) August 29, 2023
Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, even intervened to defend the boy, Jaiden.
“The Gadsden flag is a proud symbol of the American Revolution and an iconic warning to Great Britain or any government not to violate the freedoms of Americans,” Polis tweeted in response to the video.
“It appears on American medallions and challenge coins popular to this day and was also adopted by Ben Franklin to symbolize the union of the 13 colonies. It’s a great teaching moment for a history lesson!
A Colorado teacher kicked a student (above) out of class for having a Gadsden flag patch on his backpack. Twitter / @cboyack
The flag was first used by the United States’ first naval commander-in-chief as a personal ensign during the American Revolution, according to Britannica.
In more recent years, it has been embraced by the conservative Tea Party movement and has become increasingly associated with right-wing politics.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled in 2016 that the flag itself is not a racist symbol but “is sometimes interpreted to convey racially charged messages in some contexts” while investigating a complaint from a US Postal Service employee. USA about a co-worker who was wearing a hat with the flag.
Following public outrage, the school’s board of trustees called an emergency meeting and withdrew their demands that Jaiden remove the patch, the Denver Gazette reported.
The school said the seventh-grader had other patches depicting semi-automatic weapons that violated its dress code policy. Twitter / @cboyack
The school notified the student and his family on Tuesday that he will be able to return to class with the flag emblem on his backpack, according to the local newspaper.
“Since Vanguard’s founding, we have proudly supported our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the orderly liberty that all Americans have enjoyed for nearly 250 years,” the board wrote in an email to Vanguard families. “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 classical education in support of these American principles.”
However, the school district said the Gadsden flag dispute that drew so much attention is only part of the story.
The Gadsden flag was first used by America’s first naval commander-in-chief as a personal insignia during the American Revolution, according to Britannica. PA
“There has been national media attention on our charter school, The Vanguard School, in connection with a student who had the Gadsden flag on his backpack,” Harrison School District 2 administrators said in an email obtained by the newspaper. . “Unfortunately, this story is incomplete.”
The boy also had several semi-automatic pistol patches in his backpack.
“The patch in question was part of a half-dozen other semi-automatic weapon patches,” the administrators said. “…The student returned to class without incident after removing the semi-automatic weapon patches from his backpack.”
Categories: Trending
Source: vtt.edu.vn