A free speech debate about the Confederate flag is unfurling at the Burlington Department of Public Works.
A worker there who flies a large Confederate flag on a personal vehicle is upsetting some coworkers who don’t want the flag in the department’s employee parking lot.
City administrators, though, say the flag is within the boundaries of free speech. The Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union agrees.
When an employee started flying the flag recently, people noticed. It’s a symbol of racism and hate, and it shouldn’t be allowed in a city employee lot, said Tim Ahonen, a department code enforcement officer. He asked his boss, public works director Chapin Spencer, to order the flag removed.
Spencer replied that the employee has a right to fly the flag.
“I have checked with others in the city and we do not believe that we can prevent an employee from having a flag on their private car,” Spencer told Ahonen via email. “The flag is a political statement that is in a public area as opposed to an enclosed work environment where employees are required to be to do their work. The analysis would be different if the employee wanted to put it on a plaque on his/her desk, for example.”
Spencer declined to elaborate when contacted by a reporter and referred Seven Days to Burlington city attorney Eileen Blackwood.
Ahonen was unhappy with the city’s response and forwarded his email exchange with Spencer to Seven Days. In a brief interview Wednesday, Ahonen declined to identify the employee flying the flag from his car, but said that when the red and blue symbol of the Confederacy showed up on the employee’s Jeep Cherokee in the BPW lot a few days ago, he wasn’t the only one who was unhappy.
“There are other people that are concerned,” Ahonen said.
He was reluctant to speak further, saying he’d been asked not to communicate with the press.
Wednesday morning, the Jeep with the flag was parked in the employee lot off Pine Street next to public works headquarters. The driver did not immediately respond to a note Seven Days left on the windshield seeking comment.
The city of Burlington made the right call, even though it’s a difficult situation, said Allen Gilbert, executive director of American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont. Free expression is protected under the First Amendment, he noted.
“We get incidents like this that always test our commitment to the doctrine of free speech and free expression and we usually do the right thing even though it’s uncomfortable to have somebody with a Confederate flag parked next to you,” Gilbert said.
Freedom of speech allows us to express opinions that may be different, Gilbert said. “We’ve always believed as a country that this mixing of ideas and viewpoints is important for a democratic society,” he said.
That said, it’s understandable for people to be offended by the Confederate flag display, Gilbert said.
“It’s no longer associated just with a battle flag for one side in the Civil War,” he said. “It’s become a flag that for many people symbolizes racism and oppression of people based on the color of their skin.”
Gilbert suggested that while the city cannot forbid the flag in the parking lot, perhaps managers could speak with the person displaying it on the car and ask: “Would you consider possibly taking it off so you don’t upset other employees?”
South Carolina’s decision to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the state capitol earlier this year has generated fresh debate about the flag and anything to do with it. Vermont has been part of the conversation.
For example, some residents are asking the school board to drop the “rebels” nickname at South Burlington High because it was once associated with displays of the Confederate flag at the school. Other residents say the flag and other allusions to Dixie were dropped at least 20 years ago and the rebels moniker is a harmless nod to the spirit of independence and freedom.
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Rick, did you actually read “True Patriot’s” comment? Where did he say anything about not allowing the D-bag to fly the flag? I read and reread it to make sure, and I didn’t see TP say anything implying D-bag doesn’t have the right to fly his racist D-bag flag. So your indignant rant is out of place and not germane. In fact, he said he was glad his family was part of the struggle to ensure rights for d-bags like this. Of course it’s his (or her) right, and I suppose whoever knows the identity of the owner of the Jeep is now privy to the racist proclivities of their coworker.
Just like the SC flag story wasn’t about banning the flag, rather removing an inappropriately placed one (that was placed there in protest of the civil rights movement in 1961), it’s silly to attempt to turn this into a discussion about the 1st amendment. Nobody’s going to take away D-bag’s precious symbol of hate. If you didn’t read the actual story either, here’s the spoiler: they’re allowed to fly the flag in the parking lot!
So if this guy was assigned to do city DPW work in Burlington that impacts several friend’s properties who happen to be Black, Latino, or Asian, how do we know that he was able to be a professional city employee. This guy is part of our city government and it forewarns some serious problems if he has to interact with our diverse community.
I mean if you want to advertise that you think the south should’ve kept their slaves, you have a right to do so. Let the flag fly free so we know who to avoid in public.
Hay Mr True Patriot, first of all thank you for your service, I too took that same oath as you and your family. Tell me where in our constitution does it say freedom of speech only if excepted by the masses? Weather anyone wants to admit it or not what you are trying to do is called sensorship. Part of why we fight for our country is to maintain and protect what freedom our fore fathers gave us. As a “TRUE PATRIOT” shouldn’t you support these freedoms weather you agree with the individual or not? Also what if I told you this “D-bag” as you call him not only deserves these rights as all citizens do, but has earned them! That’s right this “D-bag” is our brother in arms! So you can take your “your welcome” and ……….well you know where it goes!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He earned that right, you didn’t give him anything!
I’ve no use for the banner of treason, but really people, can’t you see you’re being trolled. And what’s the first rule in this situation? Don’t Feed the Troll. Ignore the jerk. Instead what do you do? Everyone gets their undies in a bunch and gives this guy exactly what he wants. You should know better.(Also he did the department a big favor. Now everyone knows how big a nit-wit he is. Huge time saver.)
When people are so frightened by the equality of others that they have to display symbols of oppression, they have lost the war. They may win the battle to that display, but their need to do so merely illustrates that they have capitulated to anger, fear and prejudice. I do not pity this person, I do not agree with him and I think that this particular symbol is offensive to the point of being contemptible. However, I do understand that ignorance and lack of balance that lies beneath it. My bigger concern is whether or not his sentiments will be acted upon in his dealings with others.
This complaint comes from a former Burlington police officer that was ousted for ratting on his fellow officers, complained because someone displayed a legal firearm in his rear window and now this? Enforce the code to the slum lords in the city, leave your personal crap for non work hours.
People are very quick to try and take someone else’s rights away from them when its something that they don’t like but when the shoe falls onto the other foot would they be so inclined to give up their rights while I don’t agree with the symbolism of that flag I fought for this country to preserve the right for that person to fly it our government has become far too involved in our day-to-day lives telling us what flag we can and cannot fly telling us what foods we can and cannot eat taxing us at greater and greater amounts for the common good so to say meanwhile no matter how much money is spent or how much regulation is put in place or freedoms are taken from each of us there are very very minimal improvements on day-to-day life
The first amendment guarantees everyone’s right to have/speak their own stupid opinion. Flying the traitors flag is an example of that.
Certainly NOT the flag my father spent nearly 2 years in a Nazi POW camp fighting under. Not the flag that draped my brothers casket they shipped him home in after being shredded in Vietnam in 1966. Not the one that graced my uniform as I protected the F-4 aircraft covering our final retreat from Vietnam in 1974 and the decades it hung there on my sleeve protecting my community. I checked and it’s not the flag my grandfather was wounded under in the Ardennes Forest in 1914.
Now, it was the flag my Great-great grandfather waved during the civil war as he fought to preserve the right of the wealthy landowners to enslave, abuse, and destroy their “property” – but he lost that war.
But hey, glad my family could be of service to the D-bag that thinks flying this flag and hide behind the right to do so is appropriate to protest his/her petty grievances. You’re welcome.