A Texas school district expelled a student for sitting during the Pledge of Allegiance. The student sued and the district settled, forced to acknowledge that students do indeed have a right to freedom of expression. That’s the right outcome — students should be taught the Pledge of Allegiance, not forced to stand for it.
Before she was kicked out of Windfern High School, India Landry was sent to the principal’s office several times after refusing to stand. Eventually, Principal Martha Srother saw Landry sitting during the pledge and demanded that she stand. When she refused, the principal ordered her to leave the school and threatened to call the police.
Yup, the principal expelled and wanted to call the police on a student for exercising her well-established legal right to protest during the Pledge of Allegiance.
And the right of students to exercise their First Amendment right to freedom of expression during the Pledge of Allegiance was clearly established in the 1943 Supreme Court case, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette that ruled that students don’t even have to say the words.
After Landry was expelled, she filed a lawsuit challenging the principal’s decision. Given the case law and the protections laid out in the Bill of Rights, it’s entirely unsurprising that U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison determined that the suit had merit and allowed it to proceed.
In the end, the school seemed to realize it had a losing case, so it settled with Landry. Part of that agreement included notifying students that they did not have to stand, but with the catch that they would need parental permission to protest.
But students should never be compelled to recite or stand for the Pledge of Allegiance — with or without their parents’ permission.
At the heart of liberal democracy is the understanding that robust disagreements on the issues most fundamental to the country and its future are needed for the United States to thrive and grow. Teaching school children to blindly follow rather than understand the country’s values is the exact opposite of that ideal.
And Landry, an African-American student, was doing just that. Inspired by NFL protests during the national anthem, she wanted to show her disagreement with the current laws and norms of the country.
That’s great. And for those worried about disrespect for the country and the flag, the solution is not to coerce the recitation of lines, but to foster genuine support for the Constitution and the rights and ideas that truly do make America great. That is accomplished far better by teaching the values of the Pledge of Allegiance than by simply forcing students to stand when they say words. The words, after all, have little meaning if values such as “liberty and justice for all” are not upheld in practice.
