The Franklin County, Virginia, school board has decided not to ban the Confederate flag with its update to its student dress code, reports say.
Monday’s announcement came after months of debate over the flag after activists pressed the board to ban the banner, WTVR TV reported.
The vote was seven to one with the board’s only black member voting to ban the flag.
Last October, black board member Penny Blue insisted that the Confederate flag is “a symbol of a dispute” and represents white supremacy. “It’s a symbol of a civil war,” she said.
Blue also claimed that black students have been “bullied” over the symbol.
“You have to have your head in the sand if you don’t think it is reasonable to believe wearing the Confederate flag would cause disruption in the learning school environment,” Blue said. “The slippery slope that I believe we are going down is that if we are too general, and every teacher and every principal has such subjectivity, and we’re not consistent, that’s the slippery slope.”
The majority of the board, though, feared that banning the flag would step on the free speech rights of too many students and therefore decided not to initiate a ban.
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