Judge: School district can bar scholar from sporting Mexican and American flag sash at commencement

DENVER — A federal decide dominated Friday {that a} rural Colorado college district can bar a highschool scholar from sporting a Mexican and American flag sash at her commencement this weekend after the scholar sued the college district.

Judge Nina Y. Wang wrote that sporting a sash throughout a commencement ceremony falls underneath school-sponsored speech, not the scholar’s non-public speech. Therefor, “the School District is permitted to restrict that speech as it sees fit in the interest of the kind of graduation it would like to hold,” Wang wrote.

The ruling was over the scholar’s request for a brief restraining order, which might have allowed her to put on the sash on Saturday for commencement as a result of the case wouldn’t have resolved in time. Wang discovered that the scholar and her attorneys didn’t sufficiently present they had been more likely to succeed, however a remaining ruling remains to be to come back.

It’s the newest dispute within the U.S. about what sort of cultural commencement apparel is allowed at graduation ceremonies, with many specializing in tribal regalia.

Attorneys for Naomi Peña Villasano argued in a listening to Friday in Denver that the college district determination violates her free speech rights. They additionally mentioned that it’s inconsistent for the district to permit Native American apparel however not Peña Villasano’s sash representing her heritage. The sash has the Mexican flag on one facet and the United States flag on the opposite.

“I’m a 200 percenter – 100% American and 100% Mexican,” she mentioned at a current college board assembly in Colorado’s rural Western Slope.

“The district is discriminating against the expression of different cultural heritages,” mentioned her legal professional Kenneth Parreno, from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, at Friday’s listening to.

An legal professional representing the Garfield County School District 16 countered that Native American regalia is required to be allowed in Colorado and is categorically totally different from sporting a rustic’s flags. Permitting Peña Villasano to sport the U.S. and Mexican flags as a sash, mentioned Holly Ortiz, might open “the door to offensive material.”

Ortiz additional said that the district doesn’t wish to stop Peña Villasano from expressing herself and that the graduate might adorn her cap with the flags or put on the sash earlier than or after the ceremony.

But “she doesn’t have a right to express it in any way that she wants,” Ortiz mentioned.

Wang sided with the district, discovering that “the School District could freely permit one sash and prohibit another.”

Similar disputes have performed out throughout the U.S. this commencement season.

A transgender woman lodged a lawsuit in opposition to a Mississippi college district for banning her from sporting a gown to commencement. In Oklahoma, a Native American former scholar introduced authorized motion in opposition to a college district for eradicating a feather, a sacred spiritual object, from her cap earlier than the commencement ceremony in 2022.

What qualifies as correct commencement apparel has been a supply of battle for Native American college students across the nation. Both Nevada and Oklahoma on Thursday handed legal guidelines permitting Native American college students to put on spiritual and cultural regalia at commencement ceremonies.

This 12 months, Colorado handed a legislation making it unlawful to maintain Native American college students from donning such regalia. Nearly a dozen states have comparable legal guidelines.