Barring ‘thin blue line’ flag on Pennsylvania township property is unconstitutional, US court rules

A federal court has ruled that a Pennsylvania community’s resolution prohibiting the display of an American flag with a thin blue line on all township property is unconstitutional. “The Township repeatedly suggests that the Thin Blue Line American Flag is of limited, if any, public value or concern because it is ‘offensive’ and ‘racist,’” Marston wrote in the court opinion. In October 2022, the matter escalated when the township’s lawyer and manager sent a cease-and-desist letter to the union, saying that the use of the flag in the union’s logo “unnecessarily exacerbates the ongoing conflict between police officers and the communities they serve,” directing the union to stop using the flag or remove Springfield Township from its name. The court sided with the officers, saying that the township failed to demonstrate “real, not conjectural, harm” by using the flag and that the ban “addresses that harm in a direct and material way.” In the opinion, Marston remarked that the township calling the flag “racist” and “offensive,” “at times borders on unprofessional.” Morale for the police force, she said, appeared to have taken a “significant toll from the repeated assertions that the police officers — and not merely the Flag — are racist.” “Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the Flag carries racist undertones to certain members of the community,” she wrote in denying a request to impose sanctions on the township.