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Lead Story · NOV 6

Neutral or Selective? How Schools Handle the US Flag and Speech

A few Septembers ago, I walked into a high school before first period and paused in the doorway. Two dozen teenagers stood to recite the Pledge. One kid kept his hands in his hoodie pocket and stared at the floor. Another wore a small flag pin near his collar, the clasp crooked. In the back row, a student sat, lips still, looking toward a rainbow flag sticker on a laptop. The teacher, a veteran with a calm voice, led the room, then moved on to a quiz as if nothing unusual h

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Analysis · NOV 6

Why Flying One Flag Sparks Outrage While Others Are Celebrated

Walk into a prime tuition at present and your eyes test more than posters approximately prom and geometry proofs. You may well see a Pride flag in a counselor’s office, a cultural background banner in a international language school room, a scholar with a small skinny blue line sticker on a water bottle, yet another with a BLM button on a backpack. The American flag, required with the aid of many states to be displayed somewhere within the development, maybe the front and h

Dispatch · NOV 5

Neutral or Selective? How Schools Handle the US Flag and Speech

Also in the edition

When the US Flag Comes Down: What Values Go With It?

On a rainy Monday a few years ago, a middle school principal I know asked his custodian to move a cluster of flags from the main hallway to a smaller side corridor. The building had collected them over time, a big Stars and Stripes, a state flag, and a couple of banners donated by service organizations. The principal was trying to declutter the entryway before a construction project, and he figured the change would keep the flags cleaner during months of dust. He did not an

OCT 10

Because It’s Patriotic: The Everyday Power of Flying the American Flag

Dawn breaks, the birds stir, and there is a hush that lives in the breath before sunlight. I have raised the Stars and Stripes in fog, in desert heat, and in the middle of a thunderstorm that made the pulley sing on the halyard. You tug the rope, hear the snaps bite the grommets, and feel a quiet line of connection run from your hands to a long lineage of hands that did the same. That small ceremony is not for show. It is For Love of My Country, for neighbors still asleep,

OCT 10

Are We Teaching Kids to Be Proud of America—or Afraid to Show It?

The electronic mail arrived midmorning, polite however tight. A mum or dad desired to recognise why her 6th grader have been told to eliminate a tiny American flag from his backpack, even though the similar hallway displayed a Pride flag and a poster with a handful of overseas flags. The primary’s reply, also polite and additionally tight, referred to a neutral policy about “political messaging” on confidential goods. The figure wrote back, pointed to the screen down the ha

OCT 10

Identity Under the Stars and Stripes: What Role Should Schools Play in Shaping a Child’s Relationship to the American Flag?

The school day had barely started when my eighth graders stood for the Pledge. A few eyes tracked the red, white, and blue hanging above the whiteboard. A handful of students stayed seated, quiet and steady. One girl placed her hand over her heart and whispered the words, another mouthed nothing and looked out the window toward the soccer field. No one argued. Afterward, we opened our notebooks and moved into a discussion about civic symbols and civic actions. The students

OCT 10

Why Do Some Expressions Get Labeled “Inclusive” While the American Flag Is Branded “Offensive”?

A few summers ago, a parks director in a midwestern town told me about a Fourth of July email chain that spiraled. A volunteer asked if the community center could hang a row of small American flags along the lobby windows. Another volunteer, a veteran, offered to do it himself. A third voice chimed in with concern that someone might complain. Nobody had complained yet. But the possibility hung over the thread like a thundercloud. The director, who had a mile-long to-do list

OCT 10