Massena students wore rainbow flags for Pride Month. Others wore Confederate flags. The school banned both

By Amy Feiereisel. Reprinted with permission from NPR.

June is Pride Month, which celebrates and supports LGBTQ+ individuals and communities.

During the first week of June, a number of students at Massena’s high school began wearing rainbow apparel to mark the start of the month: shirts, pins, colors in their hair. Students also work rainbow flags as capes.

Patrick Brady, the superintendent at Massena Central School, said “this led to some students, a couple of students bringing in a Confederate flag.”

He said there was a lot of tension at school that day, and Principal Allen Oliver said there was a moment when students were tugging a flag back and forth. That’s when the administration stepped in and enforced the dress code, says Superintendent Brady.

“This created some concern in the school and almost led to physical conflict. And so the administration stated that flags were in violation of the dress code.”

Brady says all flags are banned from the dress code altogether because they have proved to be a “substantial disruption to education.”

“It’s the idea of allowing a flag in school where students are going to wear it as a cape turned out to be disruptive,” he said. “And under the law, schools can limit that kind of expression. If it shows of substantial disruption, that’s the indicator.”

The following day, in protest, 20 LGBTQ+ students and allies staged a school walkout. They were upset that rainbow flags were being banned alongside Confederate flags.

I asked Brady if he saw a false equivalency made by banning both flags. He says that was not their intention, but he sees why the connection was made.

“So I get that, I get that criticism. But to us, it’s not about - there’s no moral equivalence between a a peaceful rainbow flag which represents, you know, peace and inclusion and accepting diversity, and a Confederate flag that represents very much the opposite of that.”

Brady says it’s “unfortunate that both were brought in at the same time,” and that they “got equated together.”

Brady, guidance counselors, and the high school principal went out and spoke with the walkout students for about an hour; and those students were not disciplined for protesting.

As for the students with the Confederate flag, Brady says, “I don’t think there’s always an awareness of what it means,” and that he and other administrators had a serious talk with the students who brought it in.

“They were spoken to, and they were addressed to so that they could understand why this is a symbol of intolerance, and is seen as as a symbol of slavery and hate and division. So it was a learning opportunity for them as well.”

Confederate flags can be seen displayed outside homes all over the North Country. This incident comes after a spate of racist and bigoted incidents at schools across the region in the last few months and years, which schools have struggled with addressing.

Massena did not take steps to ban the Confederate flag symbol, as school districts have done in places like Oregon, Massachusetts and Virginia.