This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 30, 2009 - The Farmington, Mo., school district was justified in suspending a student for wearing a Confederate cap because the student's action followed a series of racial incidents that raised the possibility of a school disruption, a federal appeals court in St. Louis ruled Friday.
The court detailed the series of incidents that preceded the school's decision to suspend 14-year-old Bryce Archambo for wearing the Confederate cap in the fall of 2006. The incidents included:
- A white student urinated on a black student while allegedly saying, "that is what black people deserve." The black student withdrew from the district.
- White students, one with an aluminum baseball bat, showed up at a black student's home saying blacks were "beneath them." The black student's mother was punched in the eye when she tried to separate the students. A melee ensued, and white students later drove around the black student's house screaming racial slurs and threatening to burn it down.
- The same black student who was involved in the incident at his home was surrounded by white students at the high school a few days later. The student withdrew from the school, and the family moved from the district.
- A fight broke out at a basketball game between Farmington and Festus when two Farmington students used racial slurs against two black Festus players. As a result, the two teams no longer play each other unless required to by their athletic conference.
The series of racial incidents led to an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Civil Rights. In addition, the school superintendent banned students wearing clothing that depicted the Confederate flag, fearing that the clothing could cause a disruption. About 15-20 of the 1,100 students are black. to know
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The racial incidents continued, however, with a white student drawing swastikas and writing "white power" song lyrics in his notebook. Another white student told his teacher that the "n------ are here" as he pointed to a visiting track team. The student drew a swastika on the chalkboard.
At the start of the 2006-07 school year, Archambo wore the cap to school during Spirit Week. The cap bore the Confederate flag and had the words, "C.S.A, Rebel Price, 1861" on it. The next day, the student wore a T-shirt and belt buckle with the flag on it. The student refused to remove the clothing and was suspended. That same day the student withdrew from school in protest.
Archambo's supporters then began to gather across the street from the school in protests where they displayed the Confederate flag. Some students thought the protests raised tensions within the school and one black student was allowed to leave the high school because he felt uncomfortable.
Other students then wore clothing to school with the flag and messages like, "The South was right, Our School is wrong."
Archambo filed a federal civil rights suit claiming that his First Amendment rights were violated. Bob Herman, a St. Louis civil liberties lawyer, represented him. U.S. District Judge Jean C. Hamilton ruled in favor of the district, and Archambo appealed.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a famous case from the 1960s involving a young school girl, Mary Beth Tinker, that public school students did not shed their free speech rights at the schoolhouse gates. It concluded that a high school student could wear a black arm ban protesting the Vietnam War. Before school officials can ban such symbols, they must have a reasonable belief that the symbols will cause a substantial disruption, the court said. In the Tinker case, there was no reasonable evidence that the armbands would cause a disruption. But the three-judge panel in the Farmington case said there was plenty of evidence in the recent racial history to justify the Farmington school officials' actions.
"We believe that this case contains sufficient evidence beyond ordinary discomfort and unpleasantness of unpopular viewpoints," wrote Chief Judge James B. Loken. "The record in this case contains evidence of likely racially-motivated violence, racial tension, and other altercations directly related to adverse race relations in the community and the school. ... Because the school could reasonably forecast a substantial disruption, the administration did not violate the First Amendment by banning the flag."
Joining Loken were Judges Roger L. Wollman and Lavenski R. Smith.
William H. Freivogel is director of the journalism program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and frequently reports for the Beacon on law and politics.
