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The banner that Anderson County High School football players ripped through before last Friday’s homecoming game included the words “Trump” and “make America great again,” but district officials say it wasn’t political.
“Read literally, the banner suggested the way to make America great again was to have the hometown team win its homecoming game, rather than having anything to do with the goings-on in Washington, D.C.,” legal counsel for Anderson County Schools said in a statement Monday. “To our knowledge the involved students took the banner language in the spirit intended as stated above, while apparently numerous adults did not.”
The ruckus began after a Facebook video was posted Friday night showing the school football team entering the field before its homecoming game by running through an American flag-style banner that included the words, “Make America Great Again Trump Those Patriots.”
The video has received over 6,300 views and about 200 comments.
Background: Kentucky high school’s Trump-themed football banner sparks controversy
Some Facebook commenters questioned the appropriateness of a sign with political references at a high school game. But others defended the banner, noting it was a clever play on words in relation to Anderson County’s opponent: The Lincoln County High School Patriots.
The flap even drew the interest of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, which said it had “looked into” the matter. ACLU spokesman Samuel Crankshaw said the group is “curious how the banner can be seen as apolitical when it includes a widely known political campaign slogan and uses the president’s name as a verb.”
But Anderson County Schools said that wasn’t the intent. Selecting a homecoming theme is a tradition at the school about 55 miles southeast of Louisville, the district said.
“The theme for Friday’s game was the patriotic ‘America Out’ where students wore red, white and blue to the game, flew their own American flag in the student section, and welcomed the team to the field flying the American flag,” the district’s statement said. “Students created a banner utilizing a popular campaign slogan of the sitting President of the United States which has become a very commonly used pop culture reference.
“… Students indicate that the banner was a design found on Pinterest that was a play on words that matched the patriotic theme and not meant to be a political statement.”
Crankshaw told The Courier Journal in an email that the school’s “main concern is that the banner appears to be school-sponsored because it was held by the cheer team for the football team to run through at the start of the game.”
“It does not appear to have been part of an open forum where students with different views could express themselves, or from a student organization that focuses on politics (i.e. young republicans club or young democrats club),” Crankshaw said. “Teachers and administrators should be extremely cautious with political statements at school so it is clear they are coming from students and are not from school faculty or staff.”
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Crankshaw added the ACLU of Kentucky wants to “emphasize that students have a constitutional right to free speech in school and during school activities.”
The school district said no disciplinary action would be warranted in this matter. Anderson County topped Lincoln 28-14.
Reach Billy Kobin at bkobin@courierjournal.com or 502-582-7030. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/subscribe.
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