High schooler calls on Colorado to allow Mexican sash at graduation

A strip of cloth with the red, green and white of Mexico’s flag on one half, and the red, white and blue of Old Glory on the other, has become the latest symbol in a battle over how Colorado students can display their ethnic pride at graduation ceremonies.

Naomi Peña Villasano wore her serape to the state Capitol on Friday on a day that was a mashup of a Cinco de Mayo celebration, a capping of a successful legislative effort to allow Native Americans to wear traditional regalia at graduations, and an acknowledgement that the First Amendment right to students’ freedom of cultural expression needs to be expanded to other ethnicities.

Peña Villasano, who is set to graduate from Grand Valley High School in Parachute on May 27, has been told by school officials that she…