A group of students at a Minnesota high school rallied to oppose a flag ban when school administrators banned the U.S. and Confederate flags. Authorities quickly rescinded the ban.
Administrators at Cold Spring, Minnesota’s Rocori High School kicked off the 2017-18 school year with a new ban on displaying flags — including the U.S. flag — in a back door effort to ban students from sporting a Confederate flag.
The new rule entered into the student handbook this year said: “Students are not allowed to display flags or banners from their vehicle while parked in the Rocori High School parking lot,” Fox News reported.
Students, though, were unhappy with the all-encompassing ban because it also banned Old Glory. A large group of students gathered in protest this week to rally in the school parking lot with a parade of vehicles sporting American flags. The rally brought students and administrators together to reach a compromise.
After the flag rally, school administrators rescinded the flag ban in part agreeing that the U.S. flag would be permitted but that it will still ban flags that make students feel “threatened, uncomfortable or unsafe.”
The administration issued a Facebook post alerting students to the new rule and insisting, “Students and school leaders fully agreed that celebration of our nation is desired, but disrespect is not acceptable or desired.”
“The students want their peers to feel safe and comfortable in school and understand that other flags can be disruptive and harmful or cause emotional responses in others,” the statement added.
Rocori School District Superintendent Scott Staska praised the protest.
“If you could have a protest, you would want one like what the students did today,” Staska told the media.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston
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