A pair of 16-year-old high school students ifromMaple Valley, Washington were suspended from school last week for wearing Confederate flags to school in protest of LGBT History Month.
The suspended teens claim their decision to wear the “stars and bars” to school was a response to a classmate who wore a rainbow flag to school.
“If he can wear his flag in support of what he believes, we figured we could do that as well,” said one of the suspended students, who only gave the name “Grady” in an interview with KOMO News further stating “We put ours around our necks and kind of walked around with them, [..] It’s just a way of showing our southern pride, nothing racist at all.”
Tahoma School District spokesman, Kevin Patterson said that school officials had warned the boys not to wear their Confederate flags, yet “they chose to bring them anyway, labeling the teens’ behavior “disruptive” and unfair to the other students. “They have a right to be there and not have their classes interrupted by this kind of event,” Patterson said.