Unicoi County school board in Tennessee will keep the Christian Flag in their office in spite of complaints filed by Freedom From Religion Foundation which cited violation of the U.S. Constitution in putting up a religious symbol at a public place.
FFRF sent a letter to the Director of Schools, saying that the board had kept up the flag since 2014.
"It is unconstitutional for a public school board to display a flag with a patently religious symbol and meaning at its meetings. You must take immediate action and refrain from further display of this flag at school board meetings," the letter states.
However, Tyler Engle, Board of Education Chairman, said they had no plans to take down the flag and that they are not sure how long it had been there.
"I'm unsure as to how long the flag has been displayed here, you know its not something that is intentionally brought out at every meeting, it is here in the room even when the board doesn't meet," Engle told WJHL News.
"Our attorney is carefully reviewing the constitutional precedent and the constitutional law as well as the case law that is cited in the letter. The board is not planning to take immediate action," he added.
The FFRF claims that the flag promotes Christianity at the public office.
"The Christian flag being displayed during public school board meetings unabashedly creates the perception of government endorsement of Christianity," said the letter written by FFRF Staff Attorney Rebecca Markert.
"The display of this Christian flag is a brazen affront to the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. Courts have continually held that school districts may not display religious messages of iconography in public schools. A majority of federal courts have held displays of Latin crosses on public property to be an unconstitutional endorsement of religion," she wrote.
The FFRF elaborated the description of the flag on its website: "The Christian flag, designed by Protestants in the early 20th century, features a Latin cross, and each of the flag's three colors represent a different aspect of Christianity: blue refers to the baptism in water, white represents biblical conceptions of purity and red signifies the crucifixion of Jesus Christ."
The school board has hired an attorney, Scott Bennet, who reportedly has a lot of experience representing public schools.
"He is reviewing precedent case law and will advise us further based on his evaluation," Engle was quoted as saying by Johnson City Press. "This is a very new and very developing situation for us. We are very carefully evaluating all of our legal options before we move forward with any action. We are working very closely with our legal representation to make sure we are in compliance with the law."
He also said, "There are a lot of very strong feelings on both sides of this issue.. We are working with our legal representation to reach a conclusion that satisfies the law, and we are working to get our focus back on the boys and girls. What we don't want to do is get sidetracked away from the business of the board of education. This is a very tense situation with a lot of feelings on both sides and we are going to work on it."
