A Colorado Springs school district is responding after a video spread Tuesday of a school administrator allegedly explaining to a mother and her son that the boy could not return to class unless he left his backpack, which had a Gadsden flag patch on it, behind.

The term “Gadsden flag” was trending on X as a video spread on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, garnering nearly 5 million views by Tuesday afternoon. The Gadsen flag was designed in 1775 during the American Revolution, featuring rattlesnake with a yellow backdrop and the words “DONT TREAD ON ME.”

Colorado College students hopeful that a new, first-in-the-U.S. resilience program will positively affect mental health

“The reason we do not want the flag displayed is due to its origins with slavery and the slave trade,” Beth Danjuma, assistant principal of the junior high building at The Vanguard School, said in the video.

When the mother responded that the Gadsden flag was a symbol of the Revolutionary War against Britain and not the Confederacy, the administrator responded, “I am here to enforce the policy that was provided, by the district, and definitely, you have every right to not agree to it.” 

But that’s not the whole story, said Harrison School District 2, home of Vanguard, a public charter school at the center of the viral moment, in an emailed news release. 

“There has been National media attention on our charter school, The Vanguard School, related to a student having the Gadsden flag on his backpack. Unfortunately, this story is incomplete. The patch in question was part of half a dozen other patches of semi-automatic weapons. The student has removed the semi-automatic patches. As a school district, we will continue to ensure all students and employees can learn and work in a safe and nurturing environment.”

“The student returned to class without incident after removing the patches of semi-automatic weapons from the backpack,” District 2 said in an email.

Vanguard has “zero-tolerance” on racial issues and takes those concerns “very seriously,” Danjuma said in a recent interview with The Gazette. “There’s a lot of different circumstances that our code of conduct handles nicely, then we decide upon a consequence. We always, always try to make our consequence a learning experience, beneficial for the student. That’s what we want to have happen so that they learn from it.”

Gov. Jared Polis, in Colorado Springs on Tuesday for an event celebrating the start of free Universal Preschool, said “I think it’s great when students express themselves in different ways as long as you’re not creating a disruptive environment. Certainly, the Gadsden flag is a great, iconic American flag. Other kids have LGBT flags on their backpacks, others have flags of major political parties or flags that support whatever causes they do, and that’s part of learning from one another, and I think it’s a great teaching moment to really reflect on what that history means and how it can be part of the healthy school environment.”

This isn’t the first time the Gadsden flag has garnered attention in Colorado.

In 2014, in Denver, a U.S. Postal Service maintenance mechanic filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint against a fellow employee who wore a hat with the Gadsden flag on it, the Washington Examiner reported. According to the aggrieved employee, the Gadsden flag is a “historical indicator of white resentment against Blacks stemming largely from the Tea Party.”

No other racial harassment was alleged in the complaint.

The EEOC said that, “after a thorough review of the record, it is clear that the Gadsden Flag originated in the Revolutionary War in a non-racial context,” but the EEOC allowed the suit to go forward because “whatever the historic origins and meaning of the symbol, it also has since been sometimes interpreted to convey racially-tinged messages in some contexts.”