Wearing a flag of surrender

An American school was faced with the possibility that some of its students would take violent exception to the nation’s flag, and, in response, the school banned . . . the nation’s flag. How, pray, is this possible?

Questions abound. Even if, contrary to all the evidence that has been presented, the problem was perceived to be that certain students were taunting others with Old Glory, shouldn’t those particular students’ behavior be corrected before their instrument itself was censored? (After all, if one child seeks to upset another, do we cut out all of the children’s tongues?)

And if flags themselves are deemed to be at fault, are we to take away from this example that Americans shouldn’t wear them in case they get attacked by barbarians? If so, one has to wonder by what metric we should determine that it is the American and not the foreign flag or holiday that has to go. Here, I can speak only for myself, but as an immigrant to this wonderful country I can assure you that I’d be utterly mortified were I in any way to provoke my new culture into removing or hiding its symbols and totems. Didn’t somebody involved think, “huh”? And, if not, didn’t someone in authority wonder whether it was wise to turn what was almost certainly a local altercation involving only a few bad eggs into a highly symbolic fight that may well be destined for the Supreme Court?