School confiscates Confederate flag from a student after others complain

A Confederate flag was confiscated from a Manatee High School student Wednesday during Spirit Week after other students complained about the flag. The next day, black students held a peaceful protest before classes started.

A student complained to Principal Don Sauer on Wednesday morning about the flag, Manatee County School District spokesman Mike Barber said. The student with the flag was found and voluntarily gave up the flag, Barber said. Photos began circulating of groups of students posing with the flag, which appears also to have “Trump 2016” printed on it, before the flag was taken away.

Spirit Week at Manatee leads into the weekend homecoming celebrations, and each day has a different theme for students.

Wednesday’s theme was “national pride,” according to the Homecoming Spirit Week 2016 flier. Students were encourage to wear a country’s flag, dress as an influential person from a country or wear traditional outfits from other countries like a Spanish bullfighter or an ancient Egyptian.

Thursday morning, a significant number of black students at the school wore all black and held the Black Lives Matter protest before school started in one of the school courtyards, Barber said. When the bell rang, the protest ended and students went to class.

As of 10:40 a.m., there were no other reported issue from the high school that Barber had seen, he said.

“That’s where we’re at right now,” Barber said.

By mid-morning, photos of the Black Lives Matter protest were making their way around social media.

With the students peacefully in the building, social media is one aspect the school district is paying particular attention to, Barber said.

“That’s something we can’t control,” he said.

Thursday’s gathering was a response to the flag incident at the school Wednesday.

Barber said the flag would be returned to the student from whom it was confiscated, and he said the incident would be handled at the school, although there was a slight increase in Bradenton Police Department presence at the school at the end of Wednesday.

Barber stressed that BPD was made aware of what happened at the school but that it was a school matter.

Officials at the school Wednesday afternoon were working to send an automated call home to parents and families.

This story was originally published September 29, 2016 at 6:29 AM with the headline "School confiscates Confederate flag from a student after others complain."