NEW ORLEANS (October 10, 2009)—The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans has affirmed a lower decision to dismiss a suit filed by current and former students in the Burleson ISD over the Confederate battle flag.

The students sued after school officials banned them from carrying purses bearing the flag.

A federal judge dismissed the case in April 2008.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision in a ruling issued Friday.

Two teenage girls took the purses to school in early 2006, according to the lawsuit, which asked the school district to clear the girls' student record, acknowledge that their constitutional rights were violated and pay unspecified damages.

Burleson school district officials tried to confiscate the purses and then sent the girls home when they refused to turn them over.

The district’s policy banning display of the Confederate flag was a response to racial hostility and tension at Burleson High School, the court said, some of which centered on display of the flag.

The opinion notes an incident in which students “shoved a Confederate flag in the face of several members of another high school’s all black girls’ volleyball team.”