Protest Held Where Students Were Dismissed For Wearing American Flag Shirts

A small group of people stood outside Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill Tuesday to mark five years since a Cinco de Mayo celebration at the campus received national attention because students were dismissed for wearing American flag shirts.

Members of conservative and patriot groups stood along a sidewalk holding poles with the American flag in front of the campus from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. for a peaceful protest exercising their First Amendment rights, according to Georgine Scott-Codiga, president of Gilroy Morgan Hill Patriots.

During a school Cinco de Mayo celebration in 2010, a group of boys were sent home for not following school officials’ orders to wear their American flag shirts inside out.

School officials said they wanted to prevent problems that arose when the same event held in 2009 led to threats exchanged between Caucasian and Mexican-American students. Some students said they felt intimidated when they saw others waving the American flag, prompting school officials to make the warnings in 2010.

A federal lawsuit was filed by parents of three boys sent home in 2010 that claimed their free speech rights were violated, but a federal trial judge and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of school officials in 2014. The U.S. Supreme Court turned down an appeal by the parents in February, making the 2014 ruling the final decision in the case.

A statement by the Morgan Hill Unified School District on the high court ruling said, “This case has never been about the American flag, which Live Oak proudly flies above our school everyday as it did on the 5th of May, 2010.”

“This case has always been about protecting the safety of students,” according to the statement. Scott-Codiga said she was “outraged” when she heard the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. “I don’t understand how anyone in America would find our U.S. flag offensive,” she said.

Tuesday’s protest was “nice and quiet” in comparison to the protest in 2014, when traffic was congested around the campus, a chain link fence was placed around the school and officers were assigned to monitor protesters, according to Scott-Codiga.

More officers were staffed at last year’s protest because police were informed that two groups with opposing views were going to be there, Morgan Hill police Capt. Shane Palsgrove said.

On Tuesday, officers were staffed at the school to keep students safe and patrol officers periodically drove by the area, Palsgrove said. No arrests were made and the protest was mostly “uneventful,” he said.

--Bay City News

--Image courtesy of Gilroy Morgan Hill Patriots on Facebook

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