This morning, a Wisconsin school board policy committee voted to move forward on a policy that would ban all political signs from schools in the district — including Pride and Black Lives Matter flags.
The ban, which would apply to schools in the Arrowhead Union High School District located just west of Milwaukee, is one of several similar bans implemented across the country. School districts in Utah, Missouri, Oregon, Florida, Indiana, and Pennsylvania have already restricted political signage — Pride and BLM included — in classrooms. The policy will now go to the school lawyer before it can be voted on by the school board.
These bans are the latest in a series of small victories achieved in schools as parents across the country advocate for an education free from leftist indoctrination. (READ MORE: A Day of Pride Month 2053 in San Francisco, Mexico)
Schools Ban Pride Flags
Bans on political signage are certainly not a new phenomenon. In 2021, parents in Bluffton, Indiana, protested the presence of a Pride flag in an eighth-grade classroom, which led to the removal of all political signage at the school.
In January 2023, the Central Bucks School District passed Policy 321, which prevents teachers from participating in any “advocacy activities” in classrooms, including hanging Pride flags in their classrooms. The district is the third largest in Pennsylvania.
Board President Dana Hunter said that Policy 321 applies to signage across the political spectrum: Anti-abortion and Blue Lives Matter signage are also prohibited under the rule.
Nevertheless, some members of the community criticized the measure, including a few students who handed out Lay’s potato chip bags printed with the word “Gays” alongside a statement reading: “Stop attacking LGBTQ students. Let our teachers teach. Students deserve the freedom to learn.”
Chris Farris, the vice president of the Arrowhead school board, said that banning political signage could create a safer environment for students while providing them with equal opportunities.
“I know it can’t be exactly the same, but … there’s no preference being shown to any one group or race or ethnicity or gender,” Farris said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Then it’s really all about transparency with families. That’s really where our focus is globally. I feel like this falls into those parameters.”
The policy would include “‘race dividing’ signs” such as BLM posters, “anti-racist classroom notations, rainbows, or any signage of any type promoting a sexual or gender preference, [or] political signage promoting one party or candidate over another.” It “does not include students attire or student-owned items or vehicles,” so long as they do not violate the dress code.
Leftist Reactions
The Left has worked locally and nationally to counter opposition to the trans agenda in schools, accusing opponents of attempting to erase LGBTQ students and labeling parental advocacy groups “hate groups.”
The Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ advocacy group, recently published a report titled “Erasing LGBTQ People From Schools and Public Life” — from their Under Fire: The War on LGBTQ People in America series — in which it painted actions taken by schools to limit the presence of the trans agenda in classrooms as right-wing extremism.
“They want to make it impossible for LGBTQ youth to be themselves in schools.… [T]hey want LGBTQ youth to be treated like they don’t exist, and those who disagree will be fired, fined, or even imprisoned.” the report said.
Another report from the Southern Poverty Law Center lists some parents’ rights organizations as “hate and antigovernment groups,” including the Florida-based Moms for Liberty.
“They can be spotted at school board meetings across the country wearing shirts and carrying signs that declare, ‘We do NOT CO-PARENT with the GOVERNMENT,’” the report reads. “The group hijacks meetings, preventing officials and parents from conducting their normal proceedings.”
Tuesday, Muslims gathered in Montgomery County, Maryland, to protest the school board’s LGBTQ curriculum.
“Liberals were left stunned,” Andy Ngô, author of Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy, commented on Twitter. “The Muslims want to be able to remove their children from the classroom when that material is taught.”
Liberals were left stunned as Muslims & Islamists gathered on Tuesday to protest the Montgomery County (Maryland) School Board over its LGBTQ+ curriculum. The Muslims want to be able to remove their children from the classroom when that material is taught. pic.twitter.com/vgTai9erXQ
— Andy Ngô ????️???? (@MrAndyNgo) June 7, 2023
Banning political posters, flags, and other signage in schools is a small victory for conservatives.
“[I]t’s really all about transparency with families,” Farris said. “That’s really where our focus is … [and] this falls into those parameters.”
Aubrey Gulick is a recent graduate from Hillsdale College and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute Fellow at The American Spectator. When she isn’t writing, Aubrey enjoys long runs, solving rock climbs, and rattling windows with the 32-foot pipes on the organ. Follow her on Twitter @AubGulick.
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