The Vanguard School: Student Removed From Class for Displaying Gadsden Flag and Pro-Gun Rights Patches on Backpack

In August 2023, a Colorado public charter school removed seventh-grader Jaiden Rodriguez from class for displaying on his backpack a patch depicting the Gadsden flag and another patch that read “Firearms Policy Coalition Official Member” and featured an image of a rifle. An administrator told Rodriguez and his mother the Revolutionary War-era Gadsden flag had “origins with slavery and slave trade.” After a video of that meeting went viral, the school said Rodriguez could display the Gadsden flag patch, but only so long as nobody complained. In an Aug. 31 letter to the school, FIRE explained that the First Amendment prohibits viewpoint-based censorship of silent, non-disruptive political expression in public schools — regardless of whether others complain about it — and that the school district’s policy banning any reference to weapons was unconstitutionally overbroad.