Are all historical symbols in danger after ‘Don’t tread on me’ flag ruled ‘racis

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Are all historical symbols in danger after ‘Don’t tread on me’ flag ruled ‘racist?’

The federal government has ruled that the Gadsden Flag — commonly known as the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag — is racist; this is horrible news for free speech, but also places American historical symbols as a whole and their display in the workplace at the mercy of bureaucrats catering to emotionally-driven cries of racism.

In a Thursday column at the Washington Post, First Amendment Scholar Eugene Volokh describes a case in which an employee filed a racial harassment complaint because one of his co-workers repeatedly wore a cap bearing the flag’s insignia to work.

The complainant alleged the cap was “racially offensive to African Americans because the flag was designed by Christopher Gadsden, a ‘slave trader & owner of slaves.’”

In turn, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which has the power to determine what constitutes a “hostile work environment,” found that:

After a thorough review of the record, it is clear that the Gadsden Flag originated in the Revolutionary War in a non-racial context. Moreover, it is clear that the flag and its slogan have been used to express various non-racial sentiments, such as when it is used in the modern Tea Party political movement, guns rights activism, patriotic displays, and by the military.

However, whatever the historic origins and meaning of the symbol, it also has since been sometimes interpreted to convey racially-tinged messages in some contexts. For example, in June 2014, assailants with connections to white supremacist groups draped the bodies of two murdered police officers with the Gadsden flag during their Las Vegas, Nevada shooting spree.

Firstly, let’s just be thankful that the EEOC didn’t affirm the basis of the employee in question’s complaint, that simply because Gadsden owned slaves, that anything he created must therefore intrinsically be racist. Not only does such an argument ignore the historical complexities surrounding the American founding, it also offers no logical backstop as to why the Washington Monument should be bulldozed, the Declaration of Independence removed from the National Archives and burned or the very Constitutional framework of our federal system should be abandoned. After all, if one product of slaveholders is unfit for the public square, why are the products and monuments to others somehow acceptable?

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