A video going viral this weekend shows an argument between military veteran Michelle Manhart, 38, and student protesters at Valdosta State University after she took away an American flag they were walking all over.
The incident took place Friday at the public university in Georgia, where “Manhart took an American flag from a group outside of the school. Manhart has told media outlets that she took the flag because it was on the ground, and protesters were walking on it,” Fox News Atlanta reported Saturday.
She was detained but not charged by campus police, according to The Valdosta State Daily Times.
“I did not want anything like this, but I got a call from a student who told me that the flag was on the ground, and they were walking on it,” Manhart, an Air Force vet, told the campus newspaper. “I was just going over there to pick up the flag off the ground. I don’t know what their cause is, but I went to pick it up because it doesn’t deserve to be on the ground.”
Valdosta State Daily Times added:
Manhart said she was taken into custody by VSU police officers who then returned the flag to the demonstrators. She admitted to The Valdosta Daily Times that she resisted arrest after seeing the flag being returned. …
The demonstrators declined to identify their group to The Valdosta Daily Times or speak with a reporter about their cause, but they did engage VSU students in heated debate.
One member of the group who declined to speak with The Valdosta Daily Times or identify himself told a VSU student that putting the American flag on the ground and walking on it was “a symbol of our protest. When a slave understands his situation and understands he doesn’t want to be in slavery, he does not respect or revere anything his slavemaster has put in front of him.”
In a statement to Fox News Atlanta, Dr. William McKinney, president of Valdosta State, said that: “The American flag represents everything that is best about our country. As the Supreme Court has held, one of those things is the right to free speech, which includes the right to disrespect even the symbol of our country. While I firmly disagree with the actions of the protesters, I understand their right to protest.”
Read the full campus news article. Watch the video:
The Daily Mail reports “Manhart has come under fire for standing up for her beliefs before. In 2007 she made national headlines – and lost her job – for posing nude for Playboy magazine.” The campus newspaper also described her as a “local activist.”
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