Report: Houston student suspended for taking down Mexican
posted at 11:36 am on May 7, 2010 by Ed Morrissey


I have received a ton of e-mail asking me to follow up yesterday’s article about the suspension of students at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, California with another story of a student suspension in Houston, Texas. In the first instance, students were suspended for refusing to remove clothing with American-flag themes on Cinco de Mayo, an obvious violation of their civil rights and a ridiculous request regardless. In the Houston story, as reported by KTRH’s Michael Berry and linked at one point by Drudge, the circumstances are quite different — and somewhat misleading:

Yesterday, a listener’s son was offended that his school, Klein Collins High School, displayed the Mexican flag prominently. His mother called to complain, and the school wouldn’t return her call. The student took the sign down.

The school pitched a fit, reviewed the surveillance tapes, found the student, and suspended him for 3 days. AND he has to pay for the flag. In light of the SF story of students sent home for wearing the AMERICAN flag because it offended the Hispanic students, I thought you’d like to know about a story closer to home.

The problem with this report is that Berry used a picture with it that shows a Mexican flag flying above an upside-down American flag, but there’s no indication that’s what happened at this school. That picture comes from an incident several years ago (exactly as shown on the Boss Emeritus’ site in March 2006) and not from Klein Collins. Berry’s report only says that the school “displayed the Mexican flag prominently,â€