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Hit with a free speech lawsuit for denying residents the ability to fly a historical, patriotic flag at City Hall, Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess seemingly retreated by repealing the public flag pole policy.

The repeal isn’t a white flag, the city’s attorneys insist. But lawyers for the residents who’ve brought the lawsuit say it’s a bait and switch to avoid legal peril.

Nashua resident Beth Scaer filed her lawsuit last month after the city refused to allow her to fly a Pine Tree Riot flag on City Hall’s “Citizen’s Flag Pole.” In its rejection statement, the city said the Pine Tree Flag, and a “Protect Women’s Sports” flag she attempted to fly previously, were “not in harmony with the message that the city wishes to express and endorse.”

After the lawsuit was filed, Donchess quietly ended the city’s long tradition of having a public flagpole, declaring that in the future, Nashua’s government would decide what flags would and wouldn’t fly and do so without community involvement.

But that repeal, done without any public input or approval from the city’s Board of Alderman, isn’t enough to get out of legal trouble, insists Scaer’s attorney, Nathan Ristuccia, with the Institute for Free Speech.

“This abrupt change is a transparent attempt to avoid judicial scrutiny, but it cannot moot the Scaers’ claim for injunctive relief,” Ristuccia said in a court filing this week.

Ristuccia said the repeal was simply cover for Nashua to engage in censorship by silencing the views of residents who do not walk in lock-step with the administration. But repealing the policy doesn’t fix anything, he wrote. In fact, Nashua and Donchess have said they don’t plan to stop controlling speech through City Hall, according to Ristuccia.

“If this Court does not grant relief, Defendant Donchess could restore the old policy just as easily as he repealed it. Indeed, a spokesman for Nashua has publicly ‘denied that the mayor had made any change to the cityʼs flagpole policy’ and stated that Donchess was ‘merely clarifying the existing policy,’” Ristuccia states in his motion.

Those statements were made to NHJournal by Steven A. Bolton, the city’s corporation counsel.

The existing policy for City Hall Plaza Events uses the same language as the now-repealed flag policy in order to control the message people are allowed to express, according to Ristuccia.

“Defendants use a City Hall Plaza Events policy that is almost identical to the 2022 flag policy … Ceremonies at the City Hall Plaza are permitted only if the ceremony’s message is ‘in harmony with city policies and messages that the city wishes to express and endorse’ and in ‘the City’s best interest,’” Ristuccia wrote.

The lawsuit stems from Scaer’s request to fly what is known as the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, featuring that phrase (from philosopher John Locke) and a pine tree. The pine tree is also a reference to the 1772 Pine Tree Riot, which took place in Weare, N.H., and is widely viewed as one of the first skirmishes in the American Revolution.

City officials denied the request, but they did not explain why they found the flag objectionable.

The Citizen Flag Pole in Nashua allowed any resident to apply for a permit to fly a flag at City Hall. Past flags have celebrated Pride Month, Indian Independence Day, Brazilian Independence Day, Greek Independence Day, International Francophonie Day, and the anniversary of the founding of Nashua’s Lions Club.

But Scaer says the city started censoring her in 2020 when her flag with the message “Save Women’s Sports” was removed after flying for one day due to complaints from City Councilor Jan Schmidt. In February, she was again denied when she sought to fly a flag supporting people who detransition after a sex change procedure. The denial stated the message was “not in harmony with the message that the City wishes to express and endorse.”

No, it’s not #FakeNews: America really hates the New England Patriots and want them to lose in Sunday’s Super Bowl.

In the SB Nation’s FanPulse poll this week, 75 percent of Americans say they want the Pats to lose to the Los Angeles Rams.

In a recent Scott Rasmussen poll 61 percent of Americans are rooting for the Rams, but more than half of those (51%) admit they don’t really care about LA, they’re really pulling for a Patriots loss.

The Pats are the most hated team in 13 states, far more than any other NFL franchise, according to a statistical analysis of Twitter content. The list includes states like New York and Florida –home of division rivals the Jets and the Dolphins — but also, inexplicably, Alaska and Hawaii.

A producer at a Pittsburgh, PA TV station got himself fired when he put the chyron message “Known Cheater” under an image of Patriot’s legendary QB Tom Brady.

In a nation hopelessly divided over everything from the Trump presidency to a video of some Catholic school boys at a DC protest, the one thing that brings Americans together is their collective contempt of Team Tom Brady.

And Patriots fans couldn’t be happier about it.

“Are you kiddin’ me? ‘Hate’ is the new ‘love,’” says longtime Boston sports fan and comic Lenny Clarke. “After all those years of suffering when the Yankees were on top of the world, I love it!”

Clarke, best known for his role as Uncle Teddy on the TV show Rescue Me, is reveling in the negative press for his beloved Pats. “You say 75 percent want us to lose?  I want to get that up to 95 percent! They hate us because they ain’t us,” Clarke says.

And he’s not alone.   Well-known Boston sports radio personality John Dennis says Boston fans see the national resentment as “a tremendous badge of honor that only outstanding teams like the Celtics in their glory days have enjoyed. We’re up there with the Montreal Canadiens in hockey and baseball’s New York Yankees. Rarified athletic company indeed,” Dennis said.

Even a notoriously easygoing politician like Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has embraced New England’s place as the Team America Loves To Hate.  “Sadly I am old enough to remember the days when no one was afraid of playing the Patriots so I have no sympathy for all the haters out there,” the Massachusetts Republican told InsideSources.

This is a recurring theme among New England sports fans: Sure, things are great today, but we remember when…

As in when the Red Sox went 86 years without winning a World Series (Clarke appeared in the Farrelly Brothers rom-com “Fever Pitch” that celebrated the misery of lifelong Sox fans).

As in the decade of the ’90s, when the Celtics had eight losing seasons in a row.

As in the year 1990 when the Patriots went 1–15. In fact, in one five year stretch, 1989-1994, the Patriots record was a dismal 19-61.

Compare that to the glories of the Belichick/Brady era today: Winning 16 AFC East titles in 18 seasons since 2001, without a losing season in between. The record for most Super Bowls reached (nine) and won (five) by a head coach–quarterback tandem,

And, in the opinion of most Americans, soon to be six Super Bowl rings.  Because the same polls that found most Americans hope Tom Brady loses also found that, by a two-to-one margin, they expect the Patriots to win.

From sports to academia to the arts to politics (Since 1952, Massachusetts has produced more major-party presidential nominees than any other state) New Englanders expect to have an outsized impact on the country and its culture. And with that impact comes backlash. New Englanders have come to expect it.

Clarke, who’s in Atlanta for the Super Bowl, says the resentment of the Patriots has even overwhelmed the local southern charm. “Everywhere I’ve been–the airport, the hotel, at restaurants–people are letting me know they want the Pats to lose. I’ve got waiters who are blowing their tips to express there hate. It’s unreal!”

“New Englanders don’t care what others think of them,” says veteran Boston Herald sports columnist Bill Speros, better known by his Twitter handle “Obnoxious Boston Fan.”

“They told King George III to go (expletive) himself 244 years ago. Roger Goodell and his flunkies are small potatoes.”