MORGAN HILL (KPIX 5) – About two dozen Tea Party activists showed up early carrying flags Monday morning to protest a recent federal court ruling in support of a school ban on wearing the American flag.

Members of the Gilroy-Morgan Hill Patriots spaced themselves out evenly on both sides of the street in front of Live Oak High School around 7:30 a.m. The protest was planned in opposition to the Ninth Circuit Court’s ruling that said school officials acted appropriately in 2010 when they sent students home for wearing the flag on the Cinco de Mayo holiday over fears of escalating racial tensions.

Students showed up Monday to find the rout into school draped with flags, but the demonstrations were peaceful.

“It’s not us against them. We all have first amendment rights,” said Georgine Scott-Codiga of the Morgan Hill Patriots.

A planned counter-protest at the same location Monday was scrapped after students said they didn’t want added distraction outside the school. They say the racial tensions are a thing of the past.

Students and administrators even posted a sign saying “we are both branches of the same tree” on a temporary fence outside the school.