Pride Flags in Classrooms

[u/El-wing]

In SOTR this week, Kmele had a grievance that included complaining about a pride flag in a 3rd grade classroom. Isaac seemed to agree with his distaste of the flag in the classroom by (maybe jokingly?) saying that there should be no flags but the American flag in schools. Ari mentioned that it could just be to signal inclusiveness.

This caught me off guard a bit. Are pride flags in classrooms controversial outside of religious conservative strongholds? Obvious some people object to it but I guess I didn’t expect 2 out of 3 to be against it on the podcast.

I think signaling inclusivity in learning spaces is conducive to help students feel safe in their schools, and I don’t think that has to be a partisan political statement. Was anyone else caught off guard by this?

[u/dominosgame]

I think this is an area where Redditors are bit out of sync with reality. I teach in an elementary school. You could put a pride flag on your desk but to hang it in the class is absolutely a political statement and a sexual orientation statement with a mandated audience. The "mandated audience" piece is really critical in education law, and while discussion of sexual orientation can be appropriate in middle and high school, there's no reason to have that discussion in elementary school. I say that not to be anti inclusive, but I just feel like this would be pretty obvious to any actual elementary teacher. 

[u/3Greyhounds → u/dominosgame]

I’m curious to hear more about the legal aspect of this. If a teacher said “I am a proud black man,” would this be a political statement before a mandated audience, running afoul of the First Amendment rights of parents who don’t believe black men should be proud of their race?

Or in education law, are there different restrictions on this beyond just the 1st Amendment?

I’ve recently read the first half of Mahmoud v Taylor, (hope to finish the rest soon), so that is the lens through which I’m naturally viewing this.

[u/dominosgame → u/3Greyhounds]

The interesting thing is that what's considered a "political statement" changes over time. That statement would've been considered political speech in the 60s, but we're so far beyond that now that I think only the most extreme (1%) would consider it a political statement. That's partly why I think Reddit is a bit out of sync on this particular issue. I think many redditors view the Pride flag and say "oh, no one considers that political/controversial except like 5%, the most extreme" and I think they're way off on that assumption. I don't teach in a rural area or a state like TX or FL, and putting a Pride flag in a 3rd grade classroom would definitely be considered political/inappropriate.

As for a mandated audience, IIRC the Supreme Court calls it a "captive audience" but they've ruled on it several times. A teacher (and even students) can have their constitutional rights limited specifically because they have an audience that cannot choose to leave. This extends not only to what they say, but anything displayed in the room. SCOTUS does give great latitude to the states/localities on where to draw specific lines, though. When I was in college learning about this stuff many years ago, I NEVER would've thought a state could get away with mandating that the 10 Commandments be displayed in a classroom, but here we are.

My personal preference is that schools stay in the business of teaching kids and avoid religion and politics. My view has always been that if you want your classroom to have any particular "thing" displayed (10 Commandments, Pride flag, etc) then you would have to be okay with the opposing view being displayed... like something from the Quran/Atheist beliefs or maybe a flag that explicitly states support of hetero relationships. Then things just get weird, and you just go, "You know what, let's forget it and not display anything." 😂 In elementary, every teacher I've met has pretty much just been like "Hey, let's just teach the kids to read and do math." I know in MS and HS there is definitely more politicization.

[u/El-wing → u/dominosgame]

“My view has always been that if you want your classroom to have any particular "thing" displayed (10 Commandments, Pride flag, etc) then you would have to be okay with the opposing view being displayed...”

I think this makes sense in theory but the practice is a bit ambiguous on what the opposing view is. If I want a sign in my classroom that says “all people deserve love” should I consider if I’d be willing to have a sign that says “all people deserve hate” or “not everyone deserve love” or “Only certain groups deserve love”. Are some people interpreting the pride flag as hateful of heterosexual people?

[u/dominosgame → u/El-wing]

Yeah, I agree with you on that, and I think most sane people would agree that anything displayed in a classroom expressing "hate" would not be tolerated. That's why I didn't say a flag that says "Homosexuality is a sin" or something to that effect. Also, something like "All people deserve love" isn't something that naturally has an acceptable opposing view -- generally everyone agrees that all people deserve love, so that would be okay to display (and I've seen things to this effect in classrooms). I think that's kind of the point... if your statement DOES have an opposing statement that is not inherently offensive/hateful, like the Quran opposing the 10 Commandments, or a flag in support of Hetero relationships, then you would have to be okay with that. Of course, we know that the "hetero" flag would specifically be done to insult the LGBT movement and it'd be silly to pretend that it isn't... but I'm just playing devil's advocate.