On Monday morning, a group of roughly 50 Americans from the Morgan Hill Patriots stood silently at attention holding tall American flags outside Live Oaks High School in Morgan Hill, CA to honor America’s commitment to free speech.
The rally fell on the fourth anniversary of the 2010 Cinco de Mayo incident, when four students showed up at the school wearing American flag T-Shirts as a symbol of American pride. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently sided with Live Oak High School’s 2010 decision to order the four students to either leave the school or take their shirts and turn them inside-out. The federal court ruled that campus safety was more important than the student’s First Amendment’s claims.
Georgine Scott-Codiga, president of the Gilroy Morgan Hill Patriots group, who is half-Mexican, told the San Jose Mercury News, “We’re just here to support the First Amendment’s right to free speech. Cinco de Mayo is a circumstance of the issue. The issue is free speech. What am I supposed to do, hate my own people? I feel like we stood up for our rights. We did not allow the fear-mongers to dictate to us.”
Kendall and Joy Jones, whose son was one of the four original students wearing the flag in 2010, have filed an appeal of the decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court. They assert that their son and the three other wearers of the flag should not have been punished.
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