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Mistrial in Tenn. student's Confederate flag suit

The flag is considered a symbol of racism and intolerance by some, while others, like DeFoe, consider it an emblem of their Southern heritage.

School officials said they worried that displaying the banner would lead to racial tensions and violence at Anderson County High, which has had problems before, and at nearby Clinton High School, which was bombed two years after becoming the first public school desegregated by court order in the Old South in 1956.

DeFoe's lawyers countered there was no evidence that racial problems resulted directly from the apparel. They also criticized the dress code for being a blanket policy that left no discretion to school principals.

DeFoe attended the high school at a time when just one out of 1,160 students was black and then went to an all-white county vocational school. By the time he finished vocational school last fall, he had been suspended more than 40 times for wearing Confederate flag apparel. He sued the school system in 2006.

Anderson County High Principal Greg Deal said he backs the dress code even if there was only one black student who might be offended.

"My feeling is, it doesn't matter how many kids I have in the school. I have the right to make sure that none of them come to school under fear of intimidation," Deal said.

DeFoe's attorney Van Irion said other, similar cases in the past have typically not gone to juries but instead were dismissed by judges or settled out of court.
"The fact that we have gotten this far and the fact that we came so close to a victory ... should send a message to all school boards in the country that if you are banning things based on the fact that it is offensive, that violates the Constitution," he said.

The panel was all white, though that was not the result of a selection strategy by either side. No blacks were in the small group of randomly selected people from which the panel was selected, a reflection of the significant white majority in East Tennessee.

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Anderson County contains the Oak Ridge TN "townsite" which was desegregated after WWII. During the war all blacks were housed in their own valley - Gamble Valley. When ORNL was built, there were separate restrooms for white and black. I had an office in one of the former black restrooms.

Part of the city of OR is also in Roane County.

Oak Ridge is where most of the scientists working at X-10 (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), K-25 (formerly the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion plant) and Y-12 (you want it - they can make it) live.

Clinton is the county seat. The former name of OR was "the Clinton Works".

When the high school was desegrated, some "good ole boys" went to the general store in nearby Oliver Springs. Being one of the local industries was mining, they stocked and sold at that time dynamite. The "gob"s bought some and blew up Clinton High School.