Happy Constitution Day! Ninth Circuit Affirms That It’s Illegal To Wear American Flag Shirts On Cinco De Mayo

8:13 AM 09/18/2014

Eric Owens
Education Editor

It’s official: the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued an order declining a request for an en banc hearing in a case involving four students in at a California high school who were sent home for wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo.

The full slate of Ninth Circuit judges has thus agreed with a lower district court and with a trio of appellate judges that officials at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, Calif. could censor students who wanted to wear flag-emblazoned shirts.

The federal appeals court issued its denial of an en banc hearing on Sept. 17 — Constitution Day.

“[N]o further petitions shall be permitted,” the court ordered.

The trouble dates back to Cinco de Mayo (May 5) in 2010, when officials at Live Oak High — a school with a predominant Mexican-American student body — forced the students to remove their American flag-festooned shirts. Administrators called the shirts “incendiary” and worried that fighting would break out between white and Latino students if Latino students noticed the shirts. So, assistant principal Miguel Rodriguez told the students to turn their shirts inside out or leave school.

Students of Mexican heritage told local media that the students wore wore American flag T-shirts should apologize. They said ethnically Mexican students wouldn’t wear a Mexican flag on the Fourth of July (not a school day, but never mind).

The high school, located 20 miles south of San Jose, has experienced numerous gang problems. Nevertheless, the school seems to have organized impressive Cinco de Mayo celebrations in recent years.

In the previous three-judge ruling, the Ninth Circuit held that school officials have wide latitude to limit freedom of expression.

Read more: The Daily Caller