St. Francis High School Suspends Student Due to Confederate Flag Tattoo
01/26/2012
By: Mitch Pittman
St. Francis High School Suspends Student Due to Confederate Flag TattooFree speech or offensive behavior?
That’s the question at St. Francis high school, where a senior recently got a tattoo of a confederate flag. The school says he can’t come to class unless he covers it up.
He got the tattoo on Saturday, and when administrators at the school noticed it on Tuesday, they said he couldn’t come back until he had it covered up because it violates their dress code.
"We have 1,500 kids in this building that are pretty positive interacting with each other, we’re just not going to allow that to defer that positive interaction that we have," said district superintendent Ed Saxton.
But the student, Neil Carlson, says it’s just his form of free speech.
"I’m just going to keep wearing what I want to wear and go to school and if the school doesn’t like it then they’ll have to keep suspending me for it," said Carlson.
The school says it has nothing against tattoos, but that this is comparable to someone getting one with nudity or a bad word: you can have it, just don’t show it.
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