The South

If South Carolina doesn’t do something about its flag problem, the Department of Justice might. No legal action is being considered to remove the Confederate flag from the state’s capitol dome (there are probably no grounds), but the department may condone objections by some of its lawyers to attending advanced training courses at DOJ’s sparkling new National Advocacy Center in Columbia.

The prospect of a federal boycott, even if informal, would ratchet up pressure on the state–already being shunned by the American Bar Association, the N.A.A.C.P. and other groups–to pull down the slave-era relic.

–By Viveca Novak/Washington