The Orange County Schools Board of Education, faced with public demands Monday that it ban the Confederate flag from school grounds, essentially punted.

That wasnt a bad idea.

The flag controversy -- far from unique to Orange County or its schools -- raises sensitive issues of racism, hate speech -- and free speech.

We understand the flag is an abrasive symbol that to many evokes generations of white supremacy and enslavement and mistreatment of African-Americans.

On the other hand, when official bodies decree what symbolic speech is permitted and what is proscribed, the slope is slippery indeed.

The board said it would establish an equity committee to advise it on the flag and the issues it raises.

We understand that improvement is an ongoing process and we are committed to collaborating with our community to support the health and well-being of all students, board chairman Stephen Halkiotis said.

That collaboration might not be easy. Finding the right path through such sensitive issues seldom is.

Perhaps the committee and the board can view this if not as a teachable moment at least an opportunity to ponder the difficulties of honoring free speech in a time of societal discord.

We tend to look to the American Civil Liberties Union in this sphere. The organization has a staunch belief in the broadest construction of permitted speech, and argues persuasively that the most important speech to defend can be that we find most disagreeable.

A couple years ago, the ACLU raised some eyebrows when it praised the South Carolina legislatures decision to remove the Confederate flag from the State Capitol while at the same time criticizing Texas for not allowing a Confederate flag as an option in the states specialty license program.

Those license messages are designed and paid by individuals, and are not messages of the state, Lee Rowland, senior staff attorney with the ACLUs Speech, Privacy and Technology Project wrote in the Washington Post in July 2015.

If the schools were hoisting the Confederate flag, that would be government speech which government could (and should in this case) renounce.

But private speech? The government cant stop you from taping up your bumper sticker or rabble-rousing from your soapbox, whether your message is a peace sign, battle hymn, swastika or heart, Rowland wrote. Your individual liberty to speak, unconstrained by government, is at the heart of both the First Amendment and our American tradition of protest and freedom.

We hope the school boards committee has a full and spirited discussion, but that those words are on their minds.

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Free speech isn't easy - Durham Herald Sun