It has been almost a week since Cinco de Mayo, and I’m still not sure how to assess the conduct in this story.

A group of five students at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, California were told by a school administrator that their American flag bandannas were “disrespectful” to the Hispanic students at the school celebrating Cinco de Mayo, and that they either had to remove them or leave. After their parents were called in to discuss the matter, the boys decided to leave.  As you might imagine, this was an instant politically-charged custom-made for Fox News. The school district issued a statement saying that it didn’t agree with the administrator’s handling of the situation.  The boys issued a statement affirming their support for American patriotism, and asserting that they felt  discriminated against and robbed of  their First Amendment rights. Then, the next day, about 85 mostly Hispanic students staged a noon protest march through Morgan Hill to express their support for the administrators.

Were the students wrong to wear American flags on a day that Mexican-American students were celebrating Cinco de Mayo? Was the school wrong to send students home for wearing apparel that featured the American flag? Is it ever fair to treat the American flag as inappropriately provocative in the United States?

Of the key participants in this controversy, only the Mexican-American students are undeniably in the clear, ethically. There is nothing wrong with having a day in which Americans celebrate the heritage of their original country; Cinco de Mayo should be no more controversial than Saint Patrick’s Day. Should be, and hopefully one day will be, but assuming the school administrators occasionally watch the news, they should have been on high alert that in 2010, Cinco de Mayo had the potential to be contentious. Coming in the wake of Arizona throwing down the gauntlet regarding illegal immigration, and following demonstrations by legal and illegal immigrants that often seemed to be claiming that California, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona were still part of Mexico, it was completely predictable that there could be some pointedly pro-U.S. action taken by non-Hispanic students, and competent officials would have laid out clear ground rules for the day. They didn’t. This was irresponsible and incompetent.

And that’s the last ethics call in this episode that I am confident about.

The next issue is whether the students who wore the American flag bandannas were simply expressing pride in their own heritage (ethical), making a fashion choice that wouldn’t be controversial any other day of the year (ethical), or intentionally showing disrespect for Cinco de Mayo and its celebration by their Hispanic colleagues (unethical). The fair way to analyze this would normally be to give the students the benefit of any doubt, and presume only good motives rather than unethical ones. I am having a difficult time making that leap of faith, however. The students are presumably aware of the illegal immigration controversy too. It is straining my benefit-of-the-doubt muscles to conclude that the students wearing the flag bandanas didn’t intend to make the in-your-face statement that this is the United States, dammit, not Mexico. Now, that statement is undoubtedly true. Still, making that statement on Cinco de Mayo, in 2010, seems to be calculated to make the Hispanic students feel uncomfortable. Political speech, however, often makes others feel uncomfortable.

The conduct of the students is ethically equivocal. Golden Rule principles would have told them, “Let the Hispanic students celebrate their heritage and have a good day. There is no reason for us to spoil it by making political statements that might be interpreted as anti-Mexican.” But a Utilitarian might well argue that the political statement is an important one, and the feelings of the Hispanic students are unfortunate casualties of a greater good. Personally, I would have gone with the Golden Rule, but unless the sole purpose of the bandannas was to upset the Hispanic students, I can’t say with any conviction that the students who wore them were behaving unethically.

So it must have been wrong for the administrators to send the students home, right? Not necessarily. If they reasonably felt that the bandannas might cause violence at the school, the administrators are within their discretion to suppress otherwise protected First Amendment speech. Still—the American flag? How can the American flag represent provocative speech in America? This isn’t an ethical question, however. Legal, cultural, societal, political, logical…but not ethical.

A couple of other observations on this perplexing event:

• It would have been encouraging to see the A.C.L.U. enter the fray on the side of the bandanna-wearing students. But no such luck: the current A.C.L.U. seems to be unwilling to take a stand for the First Amendment rights of individuals making political statements that it deems politically incorrect. Maybe the organization decided that the issue here was too trivial, or unwinnable, but it has been quick to defend students with political slogans on T-shirts.

• The Assistant Principal who pulled the five boys into the office was herself Hispanic. There is no way she can escape the accusation that she is biased, even if her actions had nothing to do with her own heritage. She had an apparent conflict of interest, and if there were any non-Hispanic administrators in the school, they should have handled the matter.