It shouldn’t come as a surprise. For more than a decade, school districts have provided plenty of examples of knee-jerk reactions to students and teachers displaying flags of pretty much any sort. First, they went after the Confederate flag. Then the Thin Blue Line American flag. There were instances where Gay Pride flags or BLM flags were removed. But the latest is a prime example of schools  not just stepping up to the line but jumping over it. Staunton River High School in Virginia ordered a student to remove the flags from the bed of his pickup truck because they were a “distraction”. What?

The story is simple. High school student Christopher Hartless is proud of his country and the flag the represents it. “My family fought for America, and I feel like I should be able to represent the flags that they fought for,” he explained. Last Wednesday, Hartless Mounted two flags on poles to either side of the bed of his truck, just behind the cab before heading to school. Can you imagine his surprise when school admins told him to take the flags down because they were “distractions”?

What? Distractions to who and how?

The story doesn’t end there. This week, those same admins once again told him to remove these oh-so-distracting flags. But that wasn’t enough. They also revoked his parking pass. So, even if he removed the flags, it seems like he’d be banned from parking on school property which means riding the bus.

And why–again–are these American flags a distraction?

Fortunately for Hartless, his parents have his back. If he felt so strongly about flying the American flag, the same flag so many family members fought to protect, they’d support him. Instead of caving to the powers-that-be, they withdrew him from school and will be homeschooling him until the time when the school allows students to exercise their right to free speech and fly flags from their trucks.

In response, the school issued the following statement:

A recent news story raised concerns about the Student Driver Contract for the Bedford County Public Schools (BCPS). The contract, which has been in place in all three of the high schools for over a decade, prohibits student drivers from flying large flags or banners on their vehicles, due to their potential to distract or obstruct the view of student drivers as they are navigating the school parking lot. The underlying concern for this rule is student safety. As expressed in School Board Policy IEA: Promotion of Patriotism, the school division is committed to teaching students good citizenship skills that include respect for the country, the American flag, and the sacrifices of service members and their families. In partnership with several local patriotic organizations, BCPS is proud to announce a community fundraiser to provide complimentary car flags and decals of the American Flag, of appropriate size to be safely displayed on vehicles, for junior and senior student drivers. If you would like to support this initiative, a monetary donation can be dropped off at any of the following locations. . . .

There are several takeaways from this statement. The first attempting to justify their actions as a matter of safety. The flags might distract the driver. Hmm. Take a look at the truck and the location of the flags. It’s possible they might cover the back window or somehow distract the driver IF he happened to be traveling at a speed much faster than what anyone with two working brain cells would drive at in a school parking lot. Note there is no reference to any local or state law prohibiting such flags. My guess is somewhere along the line, in an attempt to prevent Confederate flags or political flags or whatever sort of flags or signs from being displayed on vehicles, the administration passed this overly broad and too open for unequal interpretation rule. After all, what is a “large flag”?

And, lest you think this is an isolated incident, it isn’t. A 30 second search found this link. In April 2016, when the above policy was purportedly in place, students staged a protest because they were not allowed to fly their flags. Their response? To form a caravan of trucks with their flags flying proudly. If you watch the video, you’ll see US flags, MIA flags, Confederate flags and probably others.

One of the students in the video cuts right to the heart of the matter: “You lose your First Amendment [Freedom of Speech], you lose the rest of them [Constitutional rights].”

But it is the second part of the administration’s press release that caught my eye. Talk about CYA. They won’t let students fly their own flags, but they will give away flag stickers and “appropriately sized” flags for the students to use. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m picturing flags no bigger than a large index card with thin wooden “flag poles” that will fly off or break the fist time someone looks at it.

And this is supposed to make it right.

If this was an isolated incident, it would be easy to overlook it. But it isn’t. Far from it, in fact. In a quick online search I found more than a few incidents where schools took action against students who flew flags, often US flags, from their vehicles. One example took place in South Carolina when school administrators told a student he couldn’t fly a flag from his vehicle. When the story made the news, the admins suddenly backed down and said he could keep his flag. Amazing what a little bit of public pressure can do.

Perhaps it is time to start asking these administrators to tell the truth. Either show statistics proving the need for such rules to keep from “distracting” their students or explain why they have such a hatred for the flag. How many actually feel the way a NY Times op-ed piece suggested: they see the flag as “alienating to some” and to make sure no one’s feelings are hurt, they do what they can to put a boot heel on the necks of those students who proudly fly the flag.

We should be encouraging these young men and women to nurture their pride in our country and all it stands for and all it can be instead of trying to tear them down by removing symbols of the country the love. When do we say “enough is enough”?

I think I’ll go put my flag out now and maybe find a flag or two to fly from the back of my SUV. How about you?

Featured Image created by Amanda S. Green, using Midjourney AI.