Misplaced Priorities

I don’t know if it’s a symptom or part of the problem, but the priorities of parents are getting way out of whack.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A full federal appeals court won’t hear a lawsuit by three Tennessee students threatened with suspension if they wore Confederate flag T-shirts.

I don’t blame the school, as “the ban came after racial tensions” at the school. I don’t blame the kids, because they’re minors with no money. I blame their parents for thinking this was more important than their kids education.

Everybody wants to play the victim, even when their victimization is completely irrelevant to anything that actually matters. I honestly don’t think it matters if these students feel their free speech rights were violated. Go to the school board meeting, bring it up, and then go home. Class is more important.

I don’t think there is any merit in the argument that the Confederate flag is a symbol of “southern heritage” any more than the Swastika was a political symbol on par with the elephant and donkey. Whatever else it may mean to you, to most of America, even many southerners, it represents slavery, racism, and separatism. It’s a symbol that doesn’t belong in schools.

But even if it were truly an unfair ban, these parents should have put any thought of a lawsuit out of their kids’ minds. All they’re doing is teaching them that their education is secondary to even the thinnest grievances.