September 21-Fairmont High School in Kettering, Ohio made headlines after the involvement of the NAACP resulted in a policy change for student’s expression of free speech on campus. The Confederate Flag, or more specifically the “Stars and Bars” is no longer to be flown at any time on school grounds.
Superintendent L. Scott Inskeep made remarked in defense of the policy change, which arose after a parent filed a complaint with the local NAACP unit:
“If somebody wants to fly the Confederate flag, that’s fine,” Inskeep said. “That is their prerogative, as long as they do that when it’s not on school property or on grounds that offends or affects other people and other citizens when they are conducting work.”
Tinker v. Des Moines may come to mind, where students went to the Supreme Court for being suspending after wearing black armbands in class to protest the Vietnam War. The ruling upheld the student’s rights to display their protests on the grounds that the armbands were a quiet, passive, non-disruptive act of speech.
The decision of the Supreme Court also hinged on two other elements: First Amendment rights are available to both students and teachers, with certain necessary restrictions to maintain the characteristics of a school environment, and that “a prohibition against expression of opinion, without any evidence that the rule is necessary to avoid substantial interference with school discipline or the rights of others, is not permissible under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.”
Fairmont’s policy used to allow the flying of Confederate flags on student vehicles before the hours of school and after, but has since been done away with.
According to Inskeep, the flying of the flags by five student vehicles was offensive and thus disruptive–justifying the ban of this expression of free speech on campus.
Does the mere flying of a flag constitute an environment that is unreasonably affecting students? To get an idea, the National Center for Educational Statistics reports that students ages 12–18 experienced about 1,420,900 nonfatal victimizations (theft and violent victimization) at school, compared with about 778,500 nonfatal victimizations away from school. No flags violently victimized, fatally injured students.
This is not to say that only violent victimization characterizes an unsafe environment, certainly not. NCES also reports that for 2013, 3 percent of students ages 12–18 reported that they were afraid of attack or harm away from school during the school year. So far, things are looking up for the perception of safety in school for children.
Is censoring a flag keeping those students that do feel concerns for their safety, safer? If the presumed reason for the banning of the flag due to connections to racism and prejudice, then does keeping a flag off campus prevent those with racist thoughts from acting on racist thoughts? No, it certainly does not. A flag is a symbol, and the Confederate flag is one such symbol with a complex past and future.
What a privilege it is to live in a society in which what affects you is a piece of fabric strung up on a truckbed above all else. But this privilege goes deeper than that. The complaint’s worries are merely that of the thoughts of others, openly expressed lawfully. Not the actions.
I don’t think I’m in alone in the belief that a world in which racist thoughts are kept to themselves is a lot more preferable than a world in which racist actions are permitted, and a lot more realistic than believing that people will somehow not be affected by confirmation bias.
Racist speech is free speech; we don’t have to look much further than Brandenburg v. Ohio for that ruling. If a person has racist thought, which I would contend is impossible not to no matter how much someone may want to deny it, would it be preferable for them to polarize society and worsen race relations or to invest as a society in a system that both protects the rights of all individuals while simultaneously preventing racism in action? The choice to me is simple.
But protecting people from the actions of racism is not the goal of those who propose that the Stars and Bars be prohibited on school grounds or for sale or elsewhere. These avid, convenient historians are not after the empowerment or protection of the individual, instead they aim for the thoughts of the masses all the while acting as if their goals are any different from that of a supremacist.
The issue is not the flying of the Confederate flag, the issue is not what the actual intent of flyer is, the issue is that free speech that is disliked becomes persecuted as if those who said it are without their constitutional rights. If you do not think a certain, specific way—a way that conveniently aligns exactly to the cultism of the politically correct agenda—you no longer have rights, apparently.
The NAACP unit in Dayton will work with Kettering to provide diversity training amid the ruckus of an often wrongly-assumed-to-be-held opinion being displayed. The “diversity” training will do what diversity training does, which is simply to silence and reduce the actual diversity of thought.
What about preparing students for the reality that in a society that values freedom, including the freedom of speech and thought, students with a race—all students—must learn to tolerate the right of others to their own thoughts? This includes dealing with the situation that people are not going to sympathize with your every thought or go along with your every idea. Learning to deal with potential racism, among other scenarios of conflicting beliefs, is more valuable to each person than remaining ignorant solely because “Well in a perfect world there would be no racism!”
This is the real world. And being prepared to deal with a diverse marketplace of ideas includes the reality that racism is allowed to remain in the minds of any person. And it should be. That is diversity of belief. Apparently there is just no tolerating another person’s rights, even when they aren’t legally allowed to infringe on yours.
Imagine if we applied that way of thought to the rest of our decision-making. Accepting the idea that if someone finds something offensive, it is justifiable to no longer be able to function. I want to call into work offended.
While Inskeep does seem to have the school’s functioning as a whole at the top of his priorities, the judgment call to resort to diversity training—“you can’t think that training”—all because around five students flew the Stars and Bars along with the Stars and Stripes on their vehicles on school grounds is rightfully subject for scrutiny.
Fairmont might as well take down the Stars and Stripes, if the decision or perceived offense and disruption had anything to do with slavery, war, atrocities against human rights and conflict. I can assure you that if any flag can be perceived as a symbol of racism or injustice, the current flag has flown longer and higher.
The rainbow flag should probably be taken down too, seeing as the expression of something even wrongly believed to be controversial is deemed offensive and disruptive. Somehow I don’t see schools enacting that policy equally, and as that is the case I am to believe that there must be something different about the scenarios, not in content but in administration.
That ban on students wearing cat ears and certain types of clothing has clearly resolved the problematic cat-persons and wearers -of-spaghetti-straps that have long kept Fairmont from glory.
Why pick a bone with Kettering? Because it’s not about Kettering. Sure, there have been rather questionable bans and policies, but there’s no point in trying to call that out. We have to really look at our school systems as communities, and in Fairmont’s case that means sometimes making hard calls. I believe Inskeep made one such call.
When something like this happens, if something is affecting a community, there needs to be communication between those that operate and those that attend or entrust their children to the school. Part of that communication needs to include taking a hard look at what the policy changes are going to do, how the decision was reached, and how it relates to the rights of both students and officials.
Will diversity training help? Perhaps, if the training actually teaches people how to function as individuals in a society. Expecting to never have to deal with things you find offensive is certainly not in the best interest of students. I will try and give the benefit of the doubt that even more tax dollars aren’t simply being wasted perpetuating hysteria and career-racism.
Remember that every dollar spent on identity politics is one subtracted from a child’s education, subtracted from aid to the poor and the sick, chipped from the defense of our country and our allies, and another dollar in the pocket of corporations and organizations that benefit from perpetuating divisive legislation and policy. But it was all worth it to deal with the problematic vehicular-antebellum-mechanized-racism that plagues our parking lots.
What it boils down to is that being offended does nothing. If you encounter something, and your only response is that you’re offended and not to articulate your thoughts, what worth is there to it? If an argument can’t be constructed against something, I’m not going to give it merit for simply wasting time and certainly not going to base my policy around it.
There truly is no merit in being offended. The statement is meaningless. You can take offense, you can feel offense, but someone cannot offend you without your participation and intent. You are in charge of your response. The entire essence to being offended is entirely socially constructed, resulting in one of the greatest wastes of air to ever occupy the atmosphere.
Hopefully, with the difficult and monumental victory over the Stars and Bars, Kettering can resume duty and tackle the hard issues that face high school children. Suicide prevention, drug culture, mental health services, pregnancy, actual racism, hazing, violence, the list goes on. I’m sure glad the flag was banned.
But those bumper stickers with aborted fetuses, gay marriage, support our X, Nickelback,pro Second Amendment, police brutality, sexually explicit and illegal immigrant supporting acts of speech are fine.
Barton Kleen
Managing Editor