Okay, picture in your mind that old social studies classroom. What’s on the walls?
Pictures of lots of old, dead, white guys (mostly US presidents)…maps, yes, usually lot’s of maps. And fairly often there’ll be poster of the flags of the world, or in some classrooms (or school hallways) small flags of every country hanging along the top of the walls.
Suddenly, if you’re a teacher in Colorado (remember Jay Bennish?) you can only hang the Stars and Stripes in your classroom. (And, if you’re working in Red River Elementary in Coushatta, LA you can probably hang Old Glory and the Stars and Bars too).
Today’s Rocky Mountain News has the story of seventh-grade social studies teacher Eric Hamlin who was suspended from Carmody Middle School in Lakewood after refusing to remove the flags of Mexico, China and the United Nations, which were displayed in his classroom along with the American flag. Jefferson County school administrators said Hamlin’s principal believed the teacher was violating a state law that bars the display of foreign flags on public property.
Rocky Mountain News
URL: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/education/article/0,1299,DRMN_957_4940787,00.html
Teacher in trouble over flag displays
Geography instructor refused to take down foreign banners at school
By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News
August 24, 2006
A seventh-grade geography teacher at Carmody Middle School in Lakewood was suspended with pay Wednesday after he refused to take down foreign flags displayed in his classroom.
Eric Hamlin, 36, said the flags of China, Mexico and the United Nations were relevant to the unit on the fundamentals of geography he teaches in the first six weeks of the semester.
He’s used the same display for most of the nine years he’s taught in Jefferson County, Hamlin said.
“Since flags are symbols of a nation and the people who live in that nation, if a flag of a foreign nation in a geography class can’t be displayed, and only the U.S. flag can be displayed, we’re sending the message that America is number one, everything else is below that,” Hamlin said.
Hamlin received a written reprimand Tuesday. Principal John Schalk escorted Hamlin from the building when the flags were still up on Wednesday morning.
Schalk referred questions to Jefferson County Schools spokeswoman Lynn Setzer.
Setzer said Schalk believed Hamlin was in violation of a state law barring display of foreign flags on public property.
Schalk interprets the law as allowing display of a specific lesson, but not for the duration of a six-week unit, Setzer said.
Superintendent Cindy Stevenson said Hamlin could have removed the flags, then appealed the principal’s decision to higher administrators. By refusing to remove the flags, Hamlin was insubordinate, Stevenson said.
“He defied a direct, reasonable request from a principal. That’s what’s at issue here,” Stevenson said.
Stevenson said it’s possible Hamlin and the district could work out an agreement short of firing Hamlin.
Hamlin said, “There’s no question I was insubordinate . . . I did directly tell my principal that I would not follow what he told me that I had to do.
“It’s the background, the basis of what he told me to do that I disagree with,” he said.
Whether Hamlin was actually in violation of a state law is another matter.
The 2002 law bars the display of foreign flags on state buildings. Among the exceptions are foreign flags used as “part of a temporary display of any instructional or historical materials not permanently affixed or attached to any part of the buildings or grounds . . ..”
Mark Silverstein, the legal director of the Colorado chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that exception would appear to cover Hamlin’s display.
Hamlin said he’s begun drafting a written request for ACLU representation.
“We’ll read the letter and d , to take,” Silverstein said.
Hamlin has more than 50 flags that he uses during the course of the year.
Copyright 2006, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
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