Students 'pledge allegiance to an international flag,' school receives bomb threats

A public school in New York City is under fire after students said they would pledge allegiance to an "international flag."

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Kindergarten students at P.S. 75 crafted the flag as an art project that was created to support the school's Parent Teacher Association, according to Parenting.com.

The project displays an American flag with the flags of other 22 other nations, mostly Latin American countries, superimposed over the stripes. Below the flag read the words "We pledge allegiance to an international flag."

"The students made a beautifully painted stretched canvas American Flag and then applied flags from all the Spanish speaking countries onto the stripes of the American flag. All the children chose a flag to color using colored pencils and they were glued onto the larger American flag. The stars are cut canvas which are painted and decorated with REAL Swarovski Crystals (gold and crystal colored)!

The fun quote on the bottom is about unity and creating an environment in which everyone is welcome! "We pledge allegiance to an International Flag!" Our dual language classroom strives to be a place that everyone feels welcome!"

The project has since been removed from the site after staff and PTA members have received numerous threatening phone calls, profanity-laden emails and violent social media posts after conservative commenters and bloggers published articles calling the flag an example of left-wing indoctrination.

"This is the type of globalist indoctrination we have come to expect from the public school system, but telling impressionably young American children that their loyalty should lie with some nebulous idea of a global community rather than their own nation is a new low," said right-wing political pundit and Fox News host Sean Hannity, who called the flag "disgusting."

According to Patricia Frisbie, donation chair and vice president of fundraising for the PTA executive board, the project was intended to reflect the ethnic and national diversity of P.S. 75's students, many of whom speak Spanish. Lessons at the school are taught in both English and Spanish.

Now, the school is receiving "very threatening and vile, profoundly disturbing" emails.

Concerned parents and critics have also voiced outrage via social media and phone calls, saying the school should be bombed, that teachers are guilty of treason and that the principal should be fired. Teachers have been called communists, fascists and pedophiles. Other posts suggest that whoever had the idea to make this project should be executed.

Frisbie said that because of the threats, the school is holding emergency meetings and seeking additional police security.

In Frisbie's opinion, critics are "really blowing this out of context."

"These are a bunch of 5-year-olds getting together and making artwork expressing how they feel about school," she said.