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Students, school stand firm on rebel flag controve
Josey1
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Students, school stand firm on rebel flag controversy
By MICHELLE PIPPIN / Daily News staff writer
A group of Neosho High School seniors, along with parents, sat atop Senior Hill late Tuesday night in protest of the district's decision to cover the students' Confederate flag.
During Neosho's annual tradition of painting Senior Hill, Cody Duncan, James Harris, Cody Gouge and Dustin Tosh, all NHS seniors, painted a Confederate flag on the hill. From their decision, a controversy has risen as to the flag's appropriateness.
"There are lots of things that are a part of history," said Neosho Schools Superintendent Mark Mitchell. "But, when it is used as a mechanism to hurt other people, then it's not appropriate."
Cody Duncan, the senior who chose the Confederate flag as his addition to Senior Hill, said history is the reason he painted it.
"To me, the Confederate flag represents my family's heritage and Neosho's history. Neosho was the Confederate capital for a day," said Duncan. "I've had a rebel flag on my truck for years. I wear T-shirts, hats and belt buckles with the flag on it, and no one's ever said a thing."
Mitchell said, however, historical value or not, if it is used in a manner to insult a section of the population, then he believes the school has the right to protect the feelings of those people. At least one African American student has complained to administrators as to the offensiveness of the flag being on the hill.
"African American students who attend this school consider the Confederate flag a sign of racism, and the district has an obligation to protect those students," said Mitchell.
While seniors were not required to have their intended artwork approved by school authorities, they were given a list of guidelines to follow, including no profanity, or profane gestures, no satanic symbols or references, no nudity or sexual references or gang symbols or sayings and nothing drug or alcohol related. The written guidelines point out that not everything can be covered in the set rules, and asked students to use good judgment and remember that some things can be interpreted wrong.
Cody Duncan did submit a drawing for approval of his intended Confederate flag, for which Mike Snow, NHS teacher and a member of the Senior Hill Committee, wrote in response to Duncan's proposal.
"I spoke with some of the other committee members," he wrote. "The consensus was this (the Confederate flag) would not be a good idea."
"Whenever students take a directive from school sponsors and do something that potentially makes a racial slur, then those activities will be prohibited," said Mitchel.
Duncan has said the Confederate flag was not prohibited against in the guidelines given him, nor was he given a direct "no" that he could not paint it on the hill. He said he took Mr. Snow's note to be a suggestion, not a forbidden statement to paint the flag.
Cody's mother, Francis Duncan, sat with him on the hill Tuesday, as she supports her son's decision to both paint the flag and his choice in standing by the flag.
"I think it's certainly gotten way out of hand," she said, "but there's just nothing racist about this. Cody is 1/16 African American, in fact, and 1/8 Native American Indian. He is not, we are not racist. These are just a bunch of FFA kids that think the Confederate flag, the rebel flag, is cool looking. Who's to say someone isn't offended by the Christianity painted all over this hill? Or the Seagrams Seven, or the Star of David. There's a flag of Israel on the hill. I'd think, after 9-11, people would be more offended by that. I just don't understand why the school is making such a big deal out of it."
The district has given the students an option: To re-paint their section of the hill themselves, or the district will paint over the Confederate flag for them.
Duncan said he's standing up for what he's painted on the hill. He's said he won't be painting over the flag himself, and he intends to be there on the hill for a while.
"Everyone can think what they want to," he said. "I didn't paint it as a racial statement."
Nonetheless, Tom Mikes, legal council for the Neosho R-5 School District, said the depiction of a Confederate flag as a part of a school supported function risks a title six violation, based on racial harassment, so the district wants the flag removed, one way or another.
"The bottom line is that we have a responsibility to all the kids who attend school here, and no student should be subject to ridicule on the bases of race and religion," said Dr. Mitchel. "We must be cognizant of the feelings of all the students who attend here."
http://www.neoshodailynews.com/display/inn_news/news01.txt
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By MICHELLE PIPPIN / Daily News staff writer
A group of Neosho High School seniors, along with parents, sat atop Senior Hill late Tuesday night in protest of the district's decision to cover the students' Confederate flag.
During Neosho's annual tradition of painting Senior Hill, Cody Duncan, James Harris, Cody Gouge and Dustin Tosh, all NHS seniors, painted a Confederate flag on the hill. From their decision, a controversy has risen as to the flag's appropriateness.
"There are lots of things that are a part of history," said Neosho Schools Superintendent Mark Mitchell. "But, when it is used as a mechanism to hurt other people, then it's not appropriate."
Cody Duncan, the senior who chose the Confederate flag as his addition to Senior Hill, said history is the reason he painted it.
"To me, the Confederate flag represents my family's heritage and Neosho's history. Neosho was the Confederate capital for a day," said Duncan. "I've had a rebel flag on my truck for years. I wear T-shirts, hats and belt buckles with the flag on it, and no one's ever said a thing."
Mitchell said, however, historical value or not, if it is used in a manner to insult a section of the population, then he believes the school has the right to protect the feelings of those people. At least one African American student has complained to administrators as to the offensiveness of the flag being on the hill.
"African American students who attend this school consider the Confederate flag a sign of racism, and the district has an obligation to protect those students," said Mitchell.
While seniors were not required to have their intended artwork approved by school authorities, they were given a list of guidelines to follow, including no profanity, or profane gestures, no satanic symbols or references, no nudity or sexual references or gang symbols or sayings and nothing drug or alcohol related. The written guidelines point out that not everything can be covered in the set rules, and asked students to use good judgment and remember that some things can be interpreted wrong.
Cody Duncan did submit a drawing for approval of his intended Confederate flag, for which Mike Snow, NHS teacher and a member of the Senior Hill Committee, wrote in response to Duncan's proposal.
"I spoke with some of the other committee members," he wrote. "The consensus was this (the Confederate flag) would not be a good idea."
"Whenever students take a directive from school sponsors and do something that potentially makes a racial slur, then those activities will be prohibited," said Mitchel.
Duncan has said the Confederate flag was not prohibited against in the guidelines given him, nor was he given a direct "no" that he could not paint it on the hill. He said he took Mr. Snow's note to be a suggestion, not a forbidden statement to paint the flag.
Cody's mother, Francis Duncan, sat with him on the hill Tuesday, as she supports her son's decision to both paint the flag and his choice in standing by the flag.
"I think it's certainly gotten way out of hand," she said, "but there's just nothing racist about this. Cody is 1/16 African American, in fact, and 1/8 Native American Indian. He is not, we are not racist. These are just a bunch of FFA kids that think the Confederate flag, the rebel flag, is cool looking. Who's to say someone isn't offended by the Christianity painted all over this hill? Or the Seagrams Seven, or the Star of David. There's a flag of Israel on the hill. I'd think, after 9-11, people would be more offended by that. I just don't understand why the school is making such a big deal out of it."
The district has given the students an option: To re-paint their section of the hill themselves, or the district will paint over the Confederate flag for them.
Duncan said he's standing up for what he's painted on the hill. He's said he won't be painting over the flag himself, and he intends to be there on the hill for a while.
"Everyone can think what they want to," he said. "I didn't paint it as a racial statement."
Nonetheless, Tom Mikes, legal council for the Neosho R-5 School District, said the depiction of a Confederate flag as a part of a school supported function risks a title six violation, based on racial harassment, so the district wants the flag removed, one way or another.
"The bottom line is that we have a responsibility to all the kids who attend school here, and no student should be subject to ridicule on the bases of race and religion," said Dr. Mitchel. "We must be cognizant of the feelings of all the students who attend here."
http://www.neoshodailynews.com/display/inn_news/news01.txt
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
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