A Colorado middle schooler was reportedly kicked out of class for having several patches on his backpack, including one of a Gadsden flag — sparking a social media uproar.
The 12-year-old student at the Vanguard School was ordered to remove the patch of the flag — which features a coiled rattlesnake and the phrase “Don’t tread on me” on a yellow background — before he was allowed to return to class, according to footage of a meeting between the child’s mother and an administrator posted to X, formerly Twitter.
The administrator at the public charter school tells the boy’s mom that he cannot display the patch due to the flag’s “origins with slavery and the slave trade,” the video of the meeting shows.
However, the mom replies that the Gadsden flag’s origins can actually be traced to the Revolutionary War — not slavery.
The seventh-grader also reportedly had other patches depicting semi-automatic weapons, which the school said violated its dress code policy.
The clip of the meeting was posted by conservative author Connor Boyack and quickly went viral online, drawing attention across the country and sparking a nationwide debate over the history and relevance of the flag.
