Virginia's Flag Too Vulgar for Texas School District

Little more than a dot and a line representing a breast on Virginia's state flag has proved too vulgar for one Texas school district. The Lamar Consolidated Independent School District near Houston removed educational information about Virginia late last year from an online learning platform used by third- through fifth-graders because the section featured the state flag and seal, depicting the Roman goddess Virtus standing over a slain tyrant in a toga, her left breast exposed, Axios reports. Virtus has graced the state seal since 1776 and the state flag since 1861. She was at first fully clothed, but in 1901, officials ordered her left breast exposed to clearly show her as female, per the Washington Post.

The Texas Freedom to Read Project, which opposes censorship in the state, said the district acknowledged information on Virginia had been removed from the online research database, PebbleGo Next, because its state flag violated the school board's library policy banning "visual depictions or illustrations of frontal nudity" in elementary school materials. The ban was enacted with a 5-1 vote by the school board in November and the lesson on Virginia disappeared days later, the Post reports, noting another PebbleGo Next lesson on family types was also removed for references to "gender fluidity."

The Texas Freedom to Read Project said this marked "a new level of dystopian, book-banning, and censorship hell in Texas," per the Guardian. "So just to recap: the lesson about defeating tyranny is banned because of a 240-year-old wardrobe choice," said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat who pointed to the state motto, "Sic Semper Tyrannis" or "Thus Always to Tyrants," written on the flag and seal, per the Post. "I'm sure the founders would be relieved to know modesty survived, even if the message didn't," Warner added. Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, a fellow Democrat, asked: "Did they object to a bare breast? Or to the critique of tyranny?" (A squeamish Virginia attorney general once covered up the breast.)