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My point is, if left on it's own, I doubt there would have been an issue. It seems that the issue was created by the administrator stepping in. If there was an issue, worst case it would have been a fight between a few of the kids in school...big deal fights happen in school all the time.
Now, this school is in the national spot light. Guarantee there will be multiple school board meetings, school assemblies, reporters, and demonstrations. All because the administrator couldn't let kids be kids. Yea, maybe the kids wanted to try to start a stir up in the school, but in reality, all they are doing is displaying national pride while others displayed theirs.
To the comment about people displaying Mexican flag apparel on the 4th of July...personally I wouldn't care. If they are Mexcian-Americans, they are showing pride in their heritage during a national celebration. What is more American than that?
I had a similar type event in my high school. We had a new administrator suspend a few kids for wearing plain white t-shirts because they are typically sold as undershirts which he in interpreted as the kids showing their underwear thus violating the school dress policy. Meanwhile all they were doing was wearing plain white crew neck t-shirts. The whole situation got totally blown out of proportion. The local media covered it, there were emergency board meetings to deal with it, people felt the administrator was discriminating against lower class kids who wore plain shirts since they were inexpensive, kids left school and protested, and we finally ended the week with school assemblies to talk about the issue. A completely ridiculous situation that ended up being way more disruptive than a few kids "showing their underwear in public."
While this current situation is slightly different, because the original intent was most likely to be somewhat inflammatory, I honestly feel that the principle exasperated the issue by taking action rather than letting it play out.
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