A school district in Charleston, S.C., the city where nine black church members were shot and killed earlier this year, has banned students from displaying emblems with the Confederate flag.
The Charleston County School District code of conduct for the 2015-16 school year bans students from wearing clothing, jewelry or other apparel bearing the image of the Confederate flag, the Charleston Post and Courier reports.
Dylann Roof, the white man charged in the slayings of parishioners at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church in June, had appeared in photos waving the Confederate flag. A federal grand jury in South Carolina handed down a 33-count indictment against Roof that includes federal hate crime charges. Roof also faces nine counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder for the shooting spree.
The shooting sparked debate over whether to eliminate school names and mascots tied to the Confederacy. District Dossier blogger Tiara Beatty reported that:
“Controversy over the appearance of the Confederate flag on government buildings and in public spaces reached a peak after the mass shooting that left nine people dead at a historically black church in Charleston, S.C., in June. The suspect, who posed in photos with the Confederate flag, allegedly had a goal to initiate a race war.”
The school system’s code of conduct now also prohibits the flag from being displayed prominently on vehicles driven to school. The newspaper reports that the code notes that the policy comes “in light of a year marred with racially divisive and tragic events.”
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