When Susan Crane, a student at the University of Maine at Farmington, placed American flags on the floor of the college’s student center last month – as a social experiment to gauge people’s feelings about Old Glory based upon whether they walked on or around them – she ended up stepping on a hornet’s nest.

The flag is so freighted with history, symbolism and emotion, it encompasses almost everything uniting and dividing this nation. It is associated with bravery and sacrifice of soldiers, with political and social dissent, with commercialism, and with the robust blend of free expression, individualism, diversity, competition and tolerance we call liberty.

It’s not surprising, therefore, there has been so much controversy over whether Crane’s project was a legitimate intellectual inquiry or a blasphemous display of disrespect.

If her project was designed to test attitudes, she picked the perfect litmus test.

The American flag, with 13 red and white stripes (for the 13 original colonies) and white stars against a blue background (one for each of the United States), became the nation’s official flag in 1777. Its design has changed little since then, except for an increasing number of stars as new states were admitted to the union.

By tradition, the flag’s colors have taken on meaning. Red stands for hardiness and valor, white for purity and innocence, and blue for vigilance, perseverance and justice.

The flag is perhaps best known as an icon of American military strength, courage and determination. The flag that flew over Fort McHenry amid British shelling during the Battle of Baltimore in 1814 (now at the Smithsonian National Museum of American history) inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem (later national anthem), the Star Spangled Banner. The flag raising on Iwo Jima in the U.S. invasion of that Japanese-held island in 1945 inspired the Marine Corps War Memorial near Washington, D.C.

The flag became particularly important in the Civil War, when it represented the bloody struggle to preserve the Union against the rebellious Confederacy, which had adopted its own flag.

A flag drapes the casket of fallen American soldiers on their final trip home, and is handed solemnly to family during their funeral. It’s no wonder, therefore, that most veterans deplore any display of disrespect for the flag.

But what is seen by some as an inexcusable debasement of the flag is for others an affirmation of one of our most important national values – the right of free speech.

The flag has been used to convey dissent, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, when it became a symbol of anti-Vietnam War sentiment for protesters who considered themselves just as patriotic as those who venerated it.

A federal Flag Desecration Law was passed in 1968 in response to protesters burning a flag during an anti-war protest in New York’s Central Park. The law banned any act of “contempt” toward the flag.

In decisions between 1969 and 1989, however, the Supreme Court ruled verbal disparagement of the flag, wearing the flag on the seat of one’s pants, affixing a peace sticker to the flag, and burning the flag were all forms of speech and non-verbal expression protected by the First Amendment.

In effect, the court struck down federal and state laws enacted to prevent displays of disrespect towards the flag.

Congress’ attempt to override the court with the Flag Protection Act of 1989 was also held unconstitutional. Since then, attempts to pass similar laws or constitutional amendments have failed to muster needed votes in Congress.

The flag has also been exploited for commercial purposes. Flag desecration laws passed by many states between 1897 and 1932 were motivated, in part, by widespread use of the flag as an advertising logo. In typical American entrepreneurial fashion, though, the flag still appears on caps and hats, neckties, key chains, pads, advertising banners and all sorts of gifts, novelties and clothing. Enormous flags often ripple in the breeze over automobile dealerships.

Indeed, the image of Uncle Sam, in his flag-like red, white and blue garb, has become one of the most ubiquitous advertising symbols in American mercantile history.

No wonder, then, that we each see something different when we gaze at the flag, and sometime even experience conflicting emotions within ourselves. In a sense, Crane herself embodies that conflict.

“I really had a hard time putting the flags on the floor. I’m a conservative Republican, and I come from a military family,” she said. But, she added, while she understood veterans fought in the war and died for our freedom”other people have the choice to feel how they would interpret it.”

Elliott L. Epstein, a local attorney, is founder and board president of Museum L-A and an adjunct history instructor at Central Maine Community College. He can be reached at [email protected]