A Maryland school district has issued an apology and launched an internal investigation after receiving complaints that a Nazi flag had been seen in the window of a high school. People attending a basketball game at Governor Thomas Johnson High School in Frederick noticed the flag hanging in a school window on Feb. 7. The flag was immediately removed by staff when informed, the Frederick County Public Schools said in a statement on Facebook. While it was later confirmed that the flag was displayed for a World War II history class, the school district said that it would “take appropriate steps to ensure an incident such as this is not repeated.”
The flag was first spotted by Nicole Hopkins, who was attending a basketball game at the school over the weekend. “I looked at it and I thought, wait a minute. I looked at it again, I looked at my boyfriend, and I was like, ‘Is that what I think it is?'” Hopkins told the Frederick News Post, a local paper. She then posted a picture of the flag on Facebook, which quickly became viral.
District board members and school officials responded to Hopkins’ post on Friday. Hopkins said that while she understands the flag was used for educational purposes, she was confused about why it was placed in a window. Brad Young, president of the Frederick County Public Schools board, commented on her post, explaining that he was told a teacher used the flag as a prop for history lessons, the Frederick News Post reported. “[...], it should have been taken down after the lesson and was in very poor taste to have been left up in a window,” Young wrote in his comment. “I know it will be used as a learning lesson for staff and students. I on behalf of the school apologize for it happening.” Other school officials joined him in apologizing for the display, prior to the school district’s official statement.
The Washington Post said students defended the history teacher and confirmed that the flag had been used in class lessons for years. While many community members are not viewing the incident as hateful or anti-Semitic, the flag’s prominent placement in front of a window was deemed inappropriate. “There are ways to [teach World War II history] without hanging something that I know if one of my kids were to walk into a classroom with the Nazi flag, I can only imagine the anxiety and the emotions that would be running through them,” Rabbi Jordan Hersh of Beth Shalom Congregation said.
Daryl Boffman, a school district spokesman, told CNN the investigation into why the flag was displayed in the window is still ongoing. "This incident is being used as a learning activity. We try to allow some level of flexibility for our teachers to teach, but we're reviewing the process of using historic controversial artifacts," Boffman said. While officials reiterated that it is unclear why the flag was left hanging post-lesson, they also emphasized that the incident did not reflect values held by the district. “The values of FCPS are in direct contrast to the message represented by that flag, and we apologize that the display of this flag caused hurt in our community,” the school district said.
This isn’t the first time a Nazi flag was spotted on school grounds. Daily Kos reported on a September 2019 incident in which a Nazi flag was seen outside of a Battle Creek, Michigan, elementary school, when someone took down the American flag and replaced it with a Nazi flag.