Seventh-Grader Ordered To Remove Iconic Revolutionary War ‘Gadsden Flag’ From Backpack Amid Claim It Has ‘Origins of Slavery’
The historic flag, showing a drawing of a snake and the words ‘Don’t Tread on Me,’ is that latest historic symbol now rebranded as ‘racist.’
The Vanguard Secondary School in Colorado is demanding a seventh-grader, Jaiden Rodriguez, remove a Gadsden Flag patch from his backpack, claiming the Revolutionary War banner — boasting the patriotic slogan “Don’t Tread on Me” — has “origins of slavery and slave trade” and not America’s fight for independence.
The president of Libertas Institute, Connor Boyack, posted a video and documents of Jaiden and his mother — who was not named — in a meeting with an assistant school counselor, Nicole Longhoffer, who said that the Gadsden Flag couldn’t be “around other kids.”
In the video, Ms. Longhoffer asked Jaiden to “take his stuff out of his bag and go back to class,” at which point the boy’s mother objected that the patch “has nothing to do with slavery,” and suggested that the counselor was confusing it with the Confederate flag.
The Gadsden Flag dates to 1775, a year before the Declaration of Independence. It was designed by a South Carolina delegate to the Continental Congress, Christopher Gadsden, who served as a brigadier general in the Continental Army.
North America’s timber rattlesnake was a symbol of defiance against the British born of the famous “Join or Die” political cartoon in 1754. Published in the Pennsylvania Gazette and credited to Benjamin Franklin, it showed a rattler cut into sections, one for each of the 13 colonies.
“That’s like the Revolutionary War patch,” Jaiden’s mother told the school. “That was basically when they were fighting the British. That’s the Revolution.” She pointed to the ACLU, which she said states that “unless there’s a ban on patches period,” her son is “allowed to wear” whatever he wishes.
On its website, the ACLU cites the 1969 Supreme Court ruling in Tinker v. Des Moines that “cemented students’ rights to free speech in public schools,” deciding in favor of a junior-high student, Mary Beth Tinker, who wore a black armband along with classmates to protest the Vietnam War.
Ms. Longhoffer says Vanguard sees the Gadsden Flag today as one of hate. “We’re following district policy is what we’re doing,” she said. When Jaiden’s mother asked to see where any such policy existed, the counselor referred her to the school’s operations director, Jeff Yocum.
The Sun emailed Mr. Yocum for comment but hasn’t gotten a response as of publication time. However, in an email to Jaiden’s parents shared by Mr. Boyack on Twitter, the director cited a 2016 ruling by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that displaying the Gadsden Flag “could be punishable racial harassment.”
Mr. Yocum writes that the iconic yellow Gadsden banner is “tied to the Confederate flag and other white-supremacy groups, including ‘patriot’ groups.” He also sent a piece at TheConversation.com that cited an Iowa State University “graphic design scholar,” Paul Bruski, who said, “some may now see the Gadsden Flag as a symbol of intolerance and hate — or even racism.”
As for Jaiden, Mr. Boyack said this afternoon that the boy decided to return to school today “with his patch in place” and was “ready to do a sit-in if necesssary to protest.” Two law firms have stepped up to assist with Colorado’s governor tweeting his disagreement with the school.
The meanings of symbols change, and some are hijacked by odious groups. The most infamous is the swastika. A religious symbol in Native American, African, and East Asian cultures, it was used to adorn President Garfield’s final resting place at Cleveland after his assassination in 1881 before being hijacked by the Nazis.
A more recent example is the “okay” hand gesture; a hoax on the website 4chan said it symbolized the letters WP for “white power.” The Anti-Defamation League debunked the claim at first, but as the rumor spread, hate groups adopted the once-harmless hand gesuture, and the civil rights group now lists it as “a hate symbol.”
Even the American flag has been inferred to have sinister implications at several schools across America. In 2015, the Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that a California school could ban students from wearing Old Glory during Cinco de Mayo celebrations on the grounds that its display might inspire gang violence.
A nation that cedes its sacred symbols to hate groups seeking to co-opt them or bows to small groups who infer sinister meanings cannot long endure. “The Founding Fathers stood up for what they believed in against unjust laws,” Jaiden’s mother told Vanguard. “This is unjust.”
Put another way, “Don’t tread on me.”
