A Japanese 鈥渞ising sun鈥� flag has been removed from a 91原创 history classroom after a student-created online petition against it generated thousands of signatures over the weekend.
Since it went up on Saturday, the Change.org petition 鈥溾�� launched by Walnut Grove Secondary School Grade 9 student B.J. Moon has collected 9,700 names.
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Moon said he and the other students who complained about the flag were 鈥渁ll Koreans and descendant of a country that was colonized by Japan.鈥�
Korea has painful memories of the Japanese occupation during the Second World War that, among other things, forced thousands of women into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army as so-called 鈥渃omfort women.鈥�
School board spokesperson Ken Hoff said the flag was being temporarily taken down to allow 鈥渇urther discussion鈥� with the students who objected to its display and their parents.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a little unfortunate that this was taken out of context鈥� Hoff said Monday.
鈥淭he flag is being actively used as a teaching tool 鈥� you can鈥檛 start editing and censoring history.鈥�
While there have been many messages condemning the use of the flag, a lot of them are from well outside the school district, Hoff said, and the district has also received emails supporting the decision to use the flag.
Hoff said the teacher who pinned the flag to a classroom wall was a 鈥渨ell-respected history teacher.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 [the decision to use the flag] not coming from a place of ignorance,鈥� Hoff said.
Moon, Hoff added, was not a student in the history class where the flag went up, but had observed it from the hallway.
Moon did not immediately respond to Black Press requests for comment on the decision to take the flag down.
