According to KFSM, students in Arkansas faced backlash for wearing Confederate flag clothing to school.

“A couple” of students showed up at Fayetteville High School in January with Confederate flags painted on their skin, and wearing Confederate flag attire. The students were sent home.

“To us, it’s not hate. Everyone is saying it’s hate. It’s our history. We live in a southern state, and if we were doing it for hate we wouldn’t be wearing it,” freshman Jagger Starnes, who was wearing Confederate clothing, told the local the TV station. “I’m honestly not racist. I have friends that are black. I have friends that are Mexican, you know, I’m not racist by any means.”

Keith Starnes, Jagger’s father, espoused his son’s decision. “I support him in any way he’s doing it, because that’s what he’s standing up for,” he said. “If he was doing it for hate, then it would be different, but he’s not. So yeah, I’m going to support my son.”

“The Confederate flag is a symbol and it has a long history, 150 years, tied to being the ideas of racism, hatred and bigotry, and because of that it’s not allowed in our school setting,” Jay Dostal, the school’s principal, said.

“We’re not trying to trample on their First Amendment right. We’re just trying to have a safe and orderly school environment,” he told KARK.

Similar incidents in recent years have drawn national scrutiny.

School personnel and students from Wisconsin’s Tomah High School called for the prohibition of Confederate flag items after a student wore attire featuring the Dixie flag, the Associated Press reported on Saturday.

In May, a 17-year-old high school student in Montana was suspended for wearing a Confederate flag sweatshirt after he had been asked by school officials to stop doing so.

“The school is in the wrong for saying they can dictate me wearing this sweatshirt,” said Mitchell Ballas, from Missoula, according to the Associated Press. “They’re saying it’s offending kids and it’s derogatory and all that, but it’s not. It’s my First Amendment right.”

The incidents have took place amid a broader discussion about the history of the Civil War and debates over national monuments honoring Confederate soldiers.

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