Residents in an Oklahoma community supported a local teen who was banned by his high school from flying an American flag on the back of his pickup truck.
Caleb Horst is in his senior year at Edmond North High School in Edmond, Oklahoma, a city of about 100,000 people about 15 miles north of Oklahoma City. Last Wednesday, Horst drove to school with a giant American flag strapped to his truck, something he's done for “quite a long time.”
“It is the practice of Edmond Public Schools not to allow students to display or carry flags of any kind on school premises.”
But school officials told him he couldn't continue flying the flag on his truck and warned him not to bring it on Monday.
Rather than heed the warnings, Holst and several dozen fellow American patriots, both students and local residents, drove to the school's campus on Monday morning to peacefully protest the ban on flying American flags on vehicles.
According to New York PostBy 7 a.m. that morning, more than 50 cars had arrived, some decorated in red, white and blue, to show their support for Mr. Holst and, more generally, to show their patriotism in public. They recited the Pledge of Allegiance together.
“It's a First Amendment right, so it's hard for them to infringe on our rights,” Holst said.
“At the end of the day, we are all Americans, we are all united under our flag, and no one can tear us apart.”
Vance Miller, another junior at the same school, said the issue “hits home” for him because he has a brother in the military.
“He's fighting for that flag. We're[ed] To make it fly,” he said, Coco“If I was trying to make a political statement, that would be a different story, but there's nothing political about this.”
On Thursday, four days before the protest at the school, Edmond Public Schools released a statement claiming this was not about the American flag or patriotism, but about safety and “disruption and disruption during class.”
“Edmond Public Schools prohibits students from displaying or carrying any flags on school grounds. This practice has been in place for several years and is explained to students at the beginning of the school year along with various other policies and procedures,” the statement read in part.
The district also noted that the American flag is “proudly and prominently displayed” in classrooms and outside school buildings, students recite the Pledge of Allegiance each day they arrive at school and the national anthem is played before most sporting events.
But Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters and some state lawmakers have suggested the school district's self-described “practice” of banning the American flag from vehicles is unacceptable.
“We've seen parents across the state who are tired of young people being told to hate their country or not be proud of their country,” Walters said. 9 News.
Walters also said in the X video that he was working on creating guidelines for school districts across the state to “ensure that students are not targeted for carrying an American flag.”
“We want young people to be proud of their country. We seem to have a lot of patriotic students at the school and we want to encourage them to show their love for their country.”
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