Administrators Reverse Ban on Patriotic Celebration at Colorado High School
Above: Sheriff Justin Smith protesting in front of Ft. Collins H.S. to protest their
ban on a patriotic American celebration that the student body has requested.
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by John Urban | Top Right News
Yesterday, TRN reported on a Colorado school which had rejected the request of its own Student Council to hold a patriotic ‘America Day’, saying it would “offend non-American” students in the school. This, despite the fact that students were required to participate in Cinco de Mayo “celebrations” at the school every year.
Americans were outraged at the actions of administrators at Fort Collins High School. They called and emailed the school en masse. Even the angry local Sheriff came out to protest at the cold crack of dawn in front of the school waving an American flag.
It worked.
This afternoon the principal reversed course and apologized. Mark Eversole sent a letter to parents announcing that next Monday would in fact be America Day.
Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith came out this morning in 12 degree, snowy weather to protest, wearing his dress blues, and waving an American flag, to send the message so many of our readers no doubt sent at the links we provided:
“Whoever would have thought that American teenagers would be treated as second-class citizens in their own country?”The student council had wanted to designate a day during Spirit Week to celebrate the red, white & blue. The young people called it “’Merica Monday.” But the school turned down their request.
“They said they didn’t want to offend anyone from other countries or immigrants,” a 16-year-old member of the student council told me. “They just really did not want to make anyone feel uncomfortable.”
And today the principal (or district superintendent) finally realize that this is just not done — and reversed course. But they still tried to weasel out of responsibility with an absurd statement that totally distorted the godawful decisions they alone made:
“We apologize for our recent decision regarding My Country Monday and that it was seen as not patriotic. This could not be further from the truth. The original intent of Spread the Love week at Fort Collins High School was to unify the student body. When students first proposed “Merica Monday,” we felt that it was against this unifying theme and disrespectful to our country. Merica is a slang term that is often used in a negative stereotypical way to describe life in the United States. This is what led us to discuss alternatives with students. We were surprised that our community interpreted our actions as anti-American. We are a proud public school in America and support many activities to celebrate our great nation. Due to this outpouring of sentiment and misinterpretation of our intentions, we have decided to rename the first day of Spread the Love week to “America Day” as opposed to “Merica Day.” We look forward to enjoying the creativity and energy of our students as they celebrate their patriotism next week.”That’s simply not what happened. Parents and students suggested “America Monday” but administrators rejected that idea. And members of the student council were adamant that the only reason the event was barred was to prevent non-Americans from being offended.
Todd Starnes of FoxNews, who broke the story, suggested: “It seems to me that a public school administrator got caught with his hand in the multicultural cookie jar.”
Callers at local KCOL unleashed their fury over the airwaves. Students from the high school emailed passionate messages. Among them, was a young man – a tenth grader who asked not to be identified.
“I’m personally outraged at the school that we can celebrate every other culture but our own,” this young American teenager wrote. “We have activities that go on during Cinco de Mayo but we can’t celebrate and honor our own country [where] we live I’m very angry.”Sheriff Smith wasn’t buying the school’s explanation of events, and made his opinion very clear:
“We can’t and we won’t stand for that kind of attitude in our schools,” Sheriff Smith told me in a telephone interview. “It’s our country. They’re our community schools. We will take them back and restore the values – the ones that made America the great nation it is today.”Amen, Sheriff. What are we going to do about it?
“This is really a sign of root problems we have,” he said. “A lot of us understand — this anti-American sentiment has poisoned our schools – the ideas and beliefs that are preached to them.”
“This is a wake up call,” Sheriff Smith said. “We’ve been given the blessing of a wake up call as to what is going on in our school. Now the question is — what do we do about it?”
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