Student's Confederate Flag Suit Thrown Out

(AP)  A federal judge ruled a Tennessee school's ban on Confederate clothing was a reasonable attempt to prevent disruptions because of previous racial threats.

U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan threw out a former student's free-speech lawsuit against the dress code at Anderson County High School and Anderson County Career Technical Center in a ruling Tuesday.

Tommy Defoe sued after he was sent home and then suspended for insubordination in 2006 for wearing a T-shirt and a belt buckle to school bearing the image of the Confederate battle flag. He said he wanted to display his pride in his Southern heritage. Others view the Confederate flag as a symbol of racism and intolerance.

Varlan said Tommy Defoe's free-speech rights to display the Confederate battle flag in 2006 were properly limited by school officials who "reasonably forecasted a material and substantial disruption to the school environment" if the clothing was permitted.

Varlan relied on a ruling from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding a Confederate flag ban in nearby Blount County, Tenn.

Defoe's case was first tried a year ago and ended with a hung jury unable to reach a unanimous verdict. A retrial was expected in a few weeks.

"We are very stunned," Defoe attorney Van Irion said Wednesday, vowing to appeal.

Co-counsel Kirk Lyons of the Southern Legal Resource Center in Black Mountain, N.C., which has waged legal battles on behalf of the Confederate flag in several places, said the case should have gone to trial.

Knoxville attorney Arthur Knight, who represented former principal Sidney Spiva and other school officials, said the ruling vindicated his clients.

"I know these administrators feel they have a duty to protect everyone," he said. "Even if that means just one child, they take it seriously."

Irion said the Blount County case, where racial tensions led to fights and a school lock-down, "couldn't actually be more dissimilar" to the Anderson case, where there were threats and intimidation but no fights.

"Their argument was that the Confederate flag wasn't causing a riot," Knight countered. "Well, that is not the standard."

He said the legal standard is whether "a reasonable expectation" exists, based on a history of racial tensions, "that if you allow the Confederate flag that it could contribute or substantially disrupt the learning environment."

Anderson school officials testified in recent years they had seen a large Confederate flag hung in a hallway two days after two black students enrolled, Oreo cookies thrown onto a basketball court because the opposing team had a biracial player, and a black student attending a leadership class taunted with racist names.

They also said they found racist graffiti and a drawing of a hangman's noose with the name of a black student who was dating a white student.

[josiebass]

Seems to me all you haters want us to leave this country - same crap my ancestors heard from your ilk before 1860! Well your kind stole, killed my kin, destroyed everything my ancestors had built up for 200 years and I don't want to be in a union with you. Your ilk treated us as a colony after 1865 and kept all of us poor as church mice until we fought in your wars for you and now you are back for more. I am ready to secede - any day now.

[barbaram99]

I have read every one's say. I was born and raised in Maine. I am 54 and white. Yet our forebears came from overseas. They were white slaves. That sound odd to todays ears. It is true. Maine goes way back. There are building older than this nation. I know. I have always wondered why the Native Americans hate us to this day. They do. We stole this nation from them. They know the truth, I looked into the 1723 Waltham Act. At sxhool years ago they talked about the pridoners sent here from England. It is America's dirty little secret. The founding fathers were inmates as were other whites under Emdland Rule, They used the term White Slaves. Yet we became the US of A in 1776. It was an illegal war. A prisom riot in that day. A poster is right about the cival war. It had nothing to do with black folks. The need to wear uniforms as that will anawer the dress code issues. The ladies wear the head to toe clothes that they in the Middle East here. We do have sep of church and state. They are wasting the court's time over the battle flag. They teach history at school. Why don't the schools just teach their lessons. It seems every thing is turnt into a colour issue. When it is not. In my day they made an issue of the wearing love beads they called a beaded necklace.They were sent to the office for wearing them. What next..

[HGOODGUY]

THE CONFEDERATE FLAG REPRESENTS EVERYTHING UGLY ABOUT OUR HISTORY!!

IT REPRESENTS MURDER--TERROR--FEAR--INTIMIDATION--AND TO BLACK PEOPLE--LYNCHINGS!!!!

IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME THAN GO TO ANY KLAN OR HATE GROUP RALLY!!!

THAT FLAG SHOULD BE BANNED, ALONG WITH THE NAZI SWASTIKA, FROM ALL SCHOOLS AND STATE AND GOVERNMENT OWNED BUILDINGS.

IT HAS NO PLACE IN AN ENLIGHTENED SOCIETY!!!

[NHD16]

I have a more serious concern...If it was against the school rules and the student was asked not to wear this outfit, what parent allowed their child to break school regulations? Why was this child supported to go against the rules and regulations of his educational institution ....for whatever reason? You can't wear lots of things to school...you can't wear a bikini to school for instance...that is the rule. You don't have to like it or agree with it but we have to teach children to respect authority and teach them that there is a certain decorum which must be followed. What are we teaching them when we allow the children to rule the adults...who are the adults here? Kids have civil rights up to a point because they do not have the judgment and wisdom to know that there is a time a place for everything. If the Confederate flag offends a percentage of the population of a school...or if it offends anyone, the why is the child not then taught to try NOT to offend rather than supporting the offense? When the child grows up and is asked to wear a uniform or a suit...will he refuse? Why are kids given so much power? I think the kid is a brat and his parents were and are wrong to allow him to think he is right in this action! The issue goes beyond racism and civil rights to wear what you want...it speaks more to what is wrong with how we are raising our children not to respect authority or to respect fellow citizens...we are giving them a sense of entitlement which is out of proportion to their ability to make good judgement. This is a far sadder state of affairs.

[pvperson3]

I live in a small town in So. Cal., there are several people here from the south that either have Confederate Flags in their yards or bumper stickers on their cars. Ask anyone of them why and they will openly tell you it's to irritate black people. Nothing to do with "pride" or "honor", just a racist dig. That flag is a symbol of hatred and bigotry to both the people showing it and the people that see it.

[TheMasses2016]

COW-A-BUNGA dude.

[Wolfear]

I would agree that conditions for many folks were horrible, but many young men from the South gave their lives thinking they were doing the right thing....fighting for their beliefs....and now their posterity finds they cannot carry on their beliefs as it 'offends' someone else. by panhandlpete

You realize that same arguement could be used for the millions that served in the German Army in WWII. There were lots of young men that fought and died for the Swastika doesn't make the symbol and the flag any less odious.

[eus109937]

Why would the student want to wear clothing with a flag that represents anti-American everything? The confederate flag is only a symbol of anti-Americanism. I am glad it was banned at the schools. We do not need to promote anti-Americanism at our public schools.

[pubsrtoast]

Oh Well, he can always wear it when he goes out to disrupt a townhall or perhaps when tea-bagging.

[rf35]

Sometimes you just gotta let rednecks be rednecks.

[npkppprc]

Stupid id as stupid does idiot.