Nearly two dozen students at a Virginia high school were suspended on Sept. 17 for wearing Confederate clothing at a rally to protest a new school policy.
At Christiansburg High School in southwestern Virginia, 24 students reportedly came to class that day wearing the Confederate flag in violation of a new school policy. The students were given the chance to change their clothing; three students complied with the order, while the rest of the students did not, according to Reuters. As a result, those 21 students received in-school suspensions.
According to school spokeswoman Brenda Drake, 15 of the students continued to be so disruptive that they were issued one-day of out of school suspensions. Two other students were given three-day suspensions for bad language and threatening behavior, according to NBC News.
Roanoke, Va. NBC affiliate WSLS reported that students were protesting a new school policy that prohibits students from displaying the Confederate flag on their cars in the school parking lot. The students are required to agree to the policy in writing before receiving a parking pass.
Fox News reported that Christiansburg High School is 83 percent White and 8 percent Black.
Some students argued that symbol isn’t racist, but is about upholding their heritage.
“It’s not racist; I can tell you that right now,” one student, Hannah Smith, told WSLS. “My brother left this world a few months ago, and he told me it doesn’t matter what people say, keep that flag flying.”
“They’re trying to get rid of it, and they’re not trying to get rid of any other flag,” another, Forrest Taylor, told the television station. “They say that it’s a racist thing, even though it’s not.”
Drake said that the flag was banned to maintain a safe environment for everyone, as the school faced racial frictions in the early 2000s.
“It was a year’s worth of fights that occurred from 2001 to 2002,” Drake told WSLS. “The fights were racially charged and racially motivated, and the Confederate flag was used as a symbol of intimidation in that specific case.”
There has been a nationwide push to remove Confederate flags from public display since the June 17 shooting massacre of nine Black parishioners at a church in Charleston, S.C. Dylan Roof, the man charged in the killings, had been photographed holding a picture of the flag.
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