ABSTRACT
James West, a seventh-grader at a Derby, Kansas middle school, was in math class one day in 1998 when he decided to pass the time before his next class by doing some sketching rather than homework. He began drawing a flag he’d seen on the television show The Dukes of Hazzard, a flag that appeared in each episode on the roof of the “General Lee,” a 1968 Dodge Charger that was one of the stars of that show. When his math teacher caught him sketching the flag, he immediately confiscated the piece of paper and sent James to the office. The boy was subsequently suspended for three days for violating the school’s “racial harassment and intimidation” policy, a policy that banned students from possessing “any written material, either printed or in their own handwriting, that is racially divisive or creates ill will or hatred.” The policy had been adopted in 1995 after a series of racial disturbances in the schools and the community. In order to ensure that such disturbances did not occur in the future any “symbolic expression” that might provoke conflict was banned from school property. West’s parents filed suit against the school district, claiming that it was violating their son’s First Amendment right to freedom of expression. James, for his part, maintained, “I didn’t even know what it meant. I don’t see it as being racial.”
