Many have heard about Free State’s decision to ban the Confederate flag on school grounds.

Some are angry about it, arguing that the ban was unconstitutional. Others think it was a step in the right direction and have started movements to ban the Confederate flag for more than just one school.

A petition was created by students at Free State after one of them received ISS for taking a Confederate flag off another student’s car. The petition was then given to junior Tehreem Chaudhry, who began circulating it around at LHS.

“The people from Young Feminist’s Club at Free State started circulating it,” Chaudhry said. “The two presidents of the Feminist’s Club at Free State are actually two of my closest friends and they asked me to start passing it around and I agreed.”

Students started the petition to maintain the positive learning environment the district promises, Chaudhry said. She compared the Confederate flag to the swastika and said as many think it is a symbol for oppression and can offend many students.

“The swastika actually means peace in Hindi, but it has turned into something that’s obviously meant to oppress a certain group of people,” Chaudhry said. “And that’s kinda what the Confederate flag is so I think it’s very necessary that in order to create an environment where everyone is welcome, we get rid of the Confederate flag as well.”

While the students don’t need signatures to appeal for a ban, the petition is being circulated to get signatures to show the strong support behind banning the flag, Chaudhry said.

“The signatures are basically to show that there are enough people that really want this to happen and if the school board sees that, then they’re more likely to actually ban the Confederate flag,” Chaudhry said.

When the students finish circulating the petition, they will discuss with the school board, who will finalize whether the Confederate flag will be banned district-wide.

“Our school board has a policy review committee,” school board president Vanessa Sanburn said. “My thoughts are that the policy review committee will likely review the request and provide a recommendation to the board if we decided that changes to policy are warranted. Decisions about enforcement would be made through this same process, typically.”

While some students’ oppose the petition because they claim that it is their First Amendment right to own a Confederate flag, others say it is their First Amendment right to petition. Sanburn has asked for the district’s legal counsel to research banning the Confederate flag in a public school to assure no laws are broken.

Chaudhry herself has gotten about thirty signatures so far. The signatures are supposed to be received outside of class time so they don’t impede upon instructional time, she said.

While Chaudhry doesn’t have a personal connection with the Confederate flag, she wants to circulate the petition because of the different meanings people associate with the flag.

“As someone who is a minority I feel that the way that a lot of people seem to treat the Confederate flag as if it’s something that should be allowed—they don’t understand the connotations behind it,” Chaudhry said.

While the petition to ban the Confederate flag was contemplated before the incident at Free State, the event spurred a movement to incite change in the district entirely. To assure a better learning experience at school, the petition is hoping to change the environment to be more inclusive in the near future.

“I would be happy to live in a world where I only saw the Confederate flag when looking at history books,” Sanburn said.