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By Lynn Hotaling
Local school officials Monday (Sept. 22) overturned a principal's
decision to suspend four teens because their clothing displayed
the Confederate flag.
Cullowhee Valley Principal Theresa Peters suspended the middle
school age students, two boys and two girls, because they refused
to turn their T-shirts inside out, said Mike Parris, commander
of the Jackson County Rangers, officially Camp 1917 of the Sons
of Confederate Veterans.
Parris and another member of his group met with school board members
at the request of the suspended students and their parents, he
said Tuesday.
"The way it ended, the school board decided children in Jackson
County can wear shirts with the Confederate flag," Parris
said. "I am very thankful for what (school board members)
did, and I appreciate the way they handled it."
According to Parris, the situation at Cullowhee Valley had been
simmering for about a year, and Peters had on several occasions
asked students to turn their shirts inside out if they displayed
the Confederate flag.
"This is a heritage thing," Parris said in explaining
why his group was willing to intercede on the students' behalf.
"We support banning shirts that promote alcohol or tobacco
or have vulgar language, but there is nothing mentioned in the
schools' code of conduct about the Confederate flag."
Jackson County Board of Education Chairman James Roper concurred.
"There is nothing in our handbook that says (students) cannot
wear shirts that have the Confederate flag,"
Roper said Tuesday. "They can wear it as long as it doesn't
cause a disturbance and it's not vulgar."
Board members' decision to overturn the students' suspension was
unanimous, Roper said.
Principal Peters was out of town due to illness in her family
and was unavailable to meet with board members Monday night, Roper
said.
"We don't know the whole story, but there is nothing in our
handbook that says they can't wear it," he said.
The question of whether students could wear clothing that displays
the Confederate flag came down to a "free speech" issue,
said Superintendent Mack McCary.
"Unless there was evidence the clothing was disrupting learning,
we really couldn't say they couldn't wear it," he said.
Cullowhee Valley had an "unwritten rule" that students
couldn't wear the Confederate flag out of a sensitivity to the
concerns of those who might perceive it in negative way, McCary
said.
But the school board's dress code policy contains nothing about
the Confederate flag, McCary said. The policy leaves a determination
of what is disruptive to the principal's discretion.
"The evidence of any disruption of learning is missing here,"
the superintendent said.
Cullowhee Valley's nickname is "Rebels," and the school's
mascot, as depicted throughout the school and on the baseball
field, is a southern gentleman, or "colonel" in 19th-century
attire.
When Cullowhee Valley opened in 1994, it retained the Rebel mascot
that had historically been the symbol of its predecessor, the
K-12 Camp Lab School located on Western Carolina University's
campus.
A CVS eighth-grader addressed the mascot issue in a Feb. 7, 2002,
letter to the editor of The Sylva Herald.
Her contention that the mascot and nickname are offensive to African-American
students and are no longer appropriate symbols for the school
triggered close to a dozen responses.
While several praised the writer for her courage in speaking out,
most of the letters The Herald received favored keeping the Rebel
mascot because it was part of Cullowhee's heritage.
Peters is beginning her third year as principal at the K-8 Cullowhee
Valley. School board members earlier this month extended her contract
for four years.
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