Minnesota Teens Banned From Graduation After Flying Confederate Flag

Three Minnesota teens learned a big life lesson on graduation day. They weren’t allowed to march with their classmates after sticking a huge Confederate flag in everyone’s face in the school parking lot.

Seniors Dan Fredlin and Justin Thompson, both 18, and Joey Snyder, 17, were suspended and restricted from the diploma ceremony after arriving at John F. Kennedy High School in Bloomington, Minn., Tuesday with the flags affixed to their cars. One of the teens had a flag hoisted on a 20-foot flagpole attached to his truck…

The school’s principal, Ron Simmons, who is black, made the decision to suspend the trio and ban them from the commencement, a decision school district officials affirmed.

“What is not acceptable is driving through the parking lot and waving the Confederate flag for the purpose of inciting a response,” Rick Kaufman, a spokesman for the Bloomington Public School district, told ABC News.

Kaufman cited a pair of state laws to justify the discipline decision, including the students’ willful disruption of the rights of others to an education and their endangerment of students and school property.

The modern-day symbolism of the Confederate flag is a hard concept to express. Jon ended his post, “Time to find a new logo for pride in the South” but the Minnesota teens were hardly demonstrating that. They say that see something non-regional — and much sexier.