In allowing former police sergeant Sylvia Cotriss' case against the City of Roswell, its police chief and city administrator to proceed, U.S. District Judge Mark Cohen said that Cotriss's explanation that she flew the Confederate flag as a way to honor her late husband and celebrate her Southern heritage “touches on a matter of public concern.”

Cotriss's attorney, David Ates, said Cotriss does not deny flying the old flag while her police cruiser was parked in her driveway. But he said she insists the vehicle was not parked there the day a passerby complained. He also insisted, “She's not a racist.”

Benton Mathis of Atlanta's Freeman Mathis & Gary, who is defending the city, said he and his clients “are not disappointed” with Cohen's order. While allowing the suit to go forward against the police chief and city administrator in their official capacities, the judge did decide that the two city officials could not be sued as individuals, Mathis said.

“We believe the case will be positioned for summary judgment on behalf of the city once the case is more fully developed,” he said. “We think we will get the evidence to warrant dismissal after discovery is complete.”

Cohen said the First Amendment protects speech by government employees—including flag-flying—if the speech in question regards matters of public concern.

For now, Cohen said, he “cannot conclude as a matter of law that [Cotriss'] display of the Confederate flag was strictly for personal reasons, as opposed to being intended to convey a message. Her stated desire to honor her deceased husband certainly appears personal; without more, it would be difficult for the Court to find that [her] speech was on a matter of public concern.”

However, the judge added, Cotriss's “professed reason that the flag connoted a symbol of heritage does suffice to state a claim that her speech concerned a matter of public interest.”

Cotriss's display of the Confederate flag while a city police officer is one more instance of long-running tensions over the continued public display by governments or their employees of symbols of the Civil War, particularly those associated with the defeated South.

Cotriss was fired following an email from a citizen who had attended a discussion on race relations at a local church where Roswell Police Chief James Russell Grant appeared.

The email said the writer was “disheartened” when he passed Cotriss' home while taking his children to school and spotted the Confederate flag and a marked police vehicle in the driveway. The flag's display by a police officer, he said, made it “very difficult to explain to my daughter that we should trust our police.” Days later, Cotriss was fired for violating a department policy that forbids police, both on and off duty, from engaging in conduct that would affect the department's ability to operate efficiently by destroying respect for or confidence in city police.

City attorneys had argued for dismissal of Cotriss' case on that basis, and Cohen acknowledged their argument in his order.

The defendants, he said, “reference the national discussion concerning the arrests and shootings of African-American suspects by police officers and attacks against police officers to support their contention that they have an interest that outweighs [Cotriss'] First Amendment rights.”

“There is no doubt that display of the Confederate flag raises strong feelings among individuals,” Cohen said. “It is the sincerely held view of many Americans, of all races, that the Confederate flag is a symbol of racial separation and oppression.”

“It may be that once the factual record in this case is developed, [the] defendants will be able to marshal evidence to support their contention that their interest in promoting efficiency in government services outweighs [Cotriss'] First Amendment interest,” he concluded. “However, at this stage of the litigation, there are no facts that compel the Court to find that [the] defendants' interest outweighs [Cotriss'] First Amendment rights.