The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has decided that displaying the “Don’t Tread On Me” Revolutionary War banner (the Gadsden Flag) is to be considered racial harassment.

According to HeatStreet, the EEOC received a complaint earlier this year from an employee of the federal government, a black man, who said he was subjected to racial discrimination when a co-worker showed up to work wearing a hat with the iconic insignia. The man stated that the logo was “racially offensive” because its designer, Christopher Gadsden, was a slave owner in 1775. The man was also upset that the flag was used by the Tea Party to show “white resentment against blacks.”

From the report:

The EEOC acknowledged that the flag did not originate with the Tea Party movement, and was created centuries ago “in a non-racial context.” However, the commission also found that the Gadsden Flag could be “interpreted to convey racially-tinged messages in some contexts,” citing as an example a 2014 shooting spree in which white supremacists draped Gadsden Flags over the bodies of two murdered police officers.

(So much for over two centuries of history being thrown out with the white supremacists' bath water.)

Washington Post writer Eugene Volokh sees this case creating multiple problems at workplaces in the future based on the mere possibility that an emblem, a political viewpoint, or a historical article could be considered racist, even if it is protected speech:

Workplace harassment law has become a content-based, viewpoint-based speech restriction, including on core political speech. A pretty serious First Amendment problem, I think.

The federal government is treading and they will trample history, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, you name it, just to be on the "right side of history."