11 yo Kicked Out of Class (and arrested) Over Refusing to say Pledge of Allegiance

[Nevilledog]

https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2019/02/14/mother-upset-after-son-kicked-out-of-class-over-pledge-of-allegiance

LAKELAND, Fla. — An 11-year-old Polk County student refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, and after explaining his reasons, he was kicked out of class and eventually arrested for being disruptive and disobeying commands to calm down and leave the classroom.

He was also suspended for three days.

The incident happened at Lawton Chiles Middle Academy in Lakeland on February 4. The sixth grader was arrested and taken to a juvenile detention center, charged with disrupting a school function and resisting arrest without violence.

The student's mother, Dhakira Talbot, said her son is in gifted classes and has been bullied at the school in the past.

"I'm upset, I'm angry. I'm hurt," she said. "More so for my son. My son has never been through anything like this. I feel like this should've been handled differently. If any disciplinary action should've been taken, it should've been with the school. He shouldn’t have been arrested."

The incident started when a substitute teacher asked the student to stand up for the pledge.

The student reportedly told the substitute teacher the flag was racist and the national anthem was offensive to black people.

In a statement to the district, the substitute teacher reported telling the 11-year-old boy "Why if it was so bad here he did not go to another place to live." She said he then said, "they brought me here."

*snip*


Freedom of speech is only for the fascists

[Irish_Dem]

1. More and more like Russia and China each day.

The laws protect the elite but punish everyone else.

[Rebl2]

26. Yep

By the time I got to HS and we did the pledge on Monday I never participated. Never heard a peep out of home room teacher.

[Irish_Dem]

32. I went to school on US military bases and we never did this crap.

When I was in civilian schools we did all the flag stuff and pledge of allegiance, etc.

But never in the Dept of Defense military schools.

We never carried on in this fake military, patriotic way.
Maybe the other branches of service did, but not the US Air Force.
We didn't wave flags, fly them from our houses or anything.

Our parents wanted us to have normal lives.
Not be little military robots.

[Rebl2]

40. That's

interesting. Good for your parents not, as you say, raising military robots. My husband was in the AF based out of Louisiana back in the 70’s.

[Irish_Dem]

44. Yes none of the Air Force kids back in the old days acted like this.

Every now and then we would get some kid from a certain area of the country
who would act out in a patriotic way but they were the odd ones.

The rest of us were normal, and no pledge of the alliance, no flags, no nothing.

I think there might have been an American flag on base flying on a pole, but we never
went by that area.

That was during the Viet Nam war and the men had taken off their rank, insignia and American flags
off of everything any way.

Back then the Air Force wanted us to be like normal kids.
Our dads just had a job which happened to be in the military.
We weren't a part of it.

[Deuxcents]

2. My god..what is happening to us?

[Delphinus]

7. Excellent

question.

[Celerity]

12. chickens coming home to roost

My god..what is happening to us?

original sins of slavery/systemic racism and crazed fundie christianity

plus

the most advanced extractive hyper-capitalism system ever, plus the technology to now scientifically induce mass hive mind behaviour, especially on the christofash white power RW

plus

a tremendously flawed (at the end of the day) US Constitution that now has its long-wave (some 2 centuries in the making) structural defects becoming fully ticking time bombs

[Evolve Dammit]

76. good points all.

[onenote]

55. FYI - This story is from 2019

I wish DUers would not post old stories without acknowledging them as such.

[erronis]

71. Thank you, onenote. Sensationalist, click-bait stories are posted here frequently.

Could get worse as AI bots start polluting our airwaves.

[dmr]

72. Thank you for pointing that out.

I usually look at the date (or the time) of articles I read. I forgot to look this time around.

I agree with your statement.

[mainer]

3. An extraordinary young man

His mother should be proud of him.

[SheltieLover]

4. Wtaf?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. How many decades ago did the Supreme Court rule

that kids cannot be required to recite the Pledge?

[Ms. Toad]

29. It will be 8 decades in June. n/t

[walkingman]

6. Good for him for teaching some Black History.

[Timeflyer]

8. He may have that substitute teacher because many educators are leaving FL for less fascist states.

[kimbutgar]

19. I hope that substitute is fired

I’m a substitute teacher and would never force a student to my personal beliefs.

I am there to keep the kids in line and have them do their work.

[ProfessorGAC]

61. Said The Same Below

I sub as well, since I retired.
The administration screwed up too.

[onenote]

56. Was that the case in 2019? This story is 4 years old.

[Freethinker65]

9. His constitutional rights were violated.

If the 2nd amendment threatening t-shirt wearing student's rights are protected, this student's are as well. And refusing to stand and recite the pledge is far less threatening.

For the record, going to school in the 70s, I always thought the pledge seemed strange. Why am I pledging to an inanimate piece of cloth? I think I and others stopped and no one cared. A few years later, it was no longer a thing at school.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. Barnette

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/227/west-virginia-state-board-of-education-v-barnette

The Court said compulsory flag salutes violated First Amendment

The decision, which was issued on Flag Day, overturned Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940) and struck down a West Virginia statute that imposed severe penalties on children and their parents if the children did not comply. The children faced expulsion and parents could be fined $50 and sent to jail for 30 days.

In Gobitis, two Jehovah’s Witness schoolchildren from Pennsylvania were expelled because they refused to comply with the school district’s policy that they salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

When the case reached the Supreme Court, the Court emphasized that the state had a strong interest in promoting “national cohesion” as “the basis of national security,” and that a mandatory flag salute was a constitutionally permissible manner of encouraging this by developing patriotism. Based on Gobitis (an 8-1 decision), West Virginia enacted the statute at issue in Barnette.

[raging moderate]

69. Yes. I taught in a school district with many Jehovah's Witnesses.

As a speech therapist, I had little say in the matter. My fellow faculty members were divided on the issue, but the law was the law, so the Jehovah's Witness children had their rights grudgingly respected. These rigid faculty members also were angry that Jehovah's Witnesses had the right to keep their children from Christmas celebrations. I remember encountering a group of older students heckling a Jehovah's Witness about Christmas. They were incredulous when I informed them that their heroes the Pilgrims also refused to celebrate Christmas - and for the same reasons given by the Jehovah's Witnesses.

[Easterncedar]

11. We fought this one back in the early 70s

We refused to say the pledge and were ignored. Problem solved.

[old as dirt]

16. Yet, here we are, half a century later.

[ShazzieB]

79. That right there is a woman after my own heart!

What really blows me away is the flag is attached to her walker! She's mobility challenged enough to use a walker, but she's out there protesting! That is one feisty lady.

Whoever you are, lady, you rock!

[tirebiter]

17. Try 1943.

The substitute teacher didn’t know that students can’t be compelled to participate in the pledge, the school district said. That’s been true since 1943, when the Supreme Court ruled in the case of West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette that students couldn’t be forced to salute the US flag or say the pledge because doing so would violate their First Amendment rights.

[dflprincess]

31. Such a different court than what we have now.

They had the courage to make that decision in the middle of WWII when patriotism was at one of it's heights.

[markie]

13. flash back to

when a few of us refused in the 60's, some brou-ha-ha but not really a big deal... WTF is happening??

[underthematrix]

14. This young gifted youngster is soon to have a very large college fund.

[SunSeeker]

25. I hope so. That school should pay out a lot, this was egregious. nt

[onenote]

57. Is there an update? This happened four years ago.

[Dorian Gray]

59. Hope so

[dsc]

15. The district should let subs know that they can't make kids do the pledge

though some of the teachers at my school didn't know that either. It is a decades old precedent.

[pinkstarburst]

63. Have you ever worked in a school?

This is a four year old story, but even four years ago, substitute teaching was not a sought after gig. It pays poorly, you have a stressful day trying to manage poorly behaved classrooms with too many kids in them, and you don't get a break all day because the administrators take out any planning periods the teacher might have built into their day and pull you to cover other classes.

AFTER covid, it's even worse. Teachers are leaving the profession in huge numbers. It's very difficult to fill substitute positions, bus driver positions, cafeteria worker positions, campus security positions, and paraprofessional positions. Substitutes often have to cover not just one, but two or three classes at a time.

I could tell you countless horror stories of what the subs let the class do and it comes down to the simple fact that this is a job no one wants and so the school districts can't be the least bit picky when it comes to hiring. They take any warm body. And in this case, I suspect the teacher knew very well about the pledge. The sub was probably going off of what was standard procedure when they were growing up, when everyone was required to stand and say it.

And if you think there is actually time for some administrator to stand around for hours in the morning with the subs and remind them about every single update that has happened in the past three decades regarding classroom procedure... I would encourage you to go volunteer in a school once a week. They need the help. They probably just hope they can manage attendance and what to do if there's a fire/shooter.

[dsc]

65. For several years

and yes substitute teaching isn't a desired gig but giving them a simple, short handbook of proper procedures is something any school should do. This is a taking attendance level thing. Yes subs can be problematic. As a math teacher it is exceptionally difficult for me to have a sub and have the class be at all productive which is why I have a massive amount of sick time accumulated as I do virtually everything I can to avoid being out. Last two years have been rough in that regard though I have to say. I really do blame the school for this one, this is a basic, daily routine type thing and subs should be informed of how that works.

[Initech]

18. He got arrested? What the absolute fucking hell?

Florida is becoming more and more of a third world dictatorship every single day. Fuck Ron Desantis and Fox News.

[Baitball Blogger]

20. I know a parochial teacher that if they don't stand, she would make them

recite it three times.

We can't let these battles go uncontested.

[Mariana]

23. I believe private schools are allowed to force students to stand and recite the Pledge.

[wnylib]

48. Not sure about that. They can enforce religious activities, like prayer.

I don't know if they can enforce the Pledge since the court ruled on it as free speech. Was that only for public schools?

[dsc]

66. Private schools can do what they want in regards to speech

provided they don't use public money to do so. In some states, even the public money comes string free.

[Bev54]

75. You think using police to arrest a child is not using public money?

[dsc]

77. I don't think private schools have police officers in them

but that said, the police should only arrest for action.

[Conjuay]

37. This REALLY happened...

1965/1966 (or so) new kid arrives from public school. Sister Mary Gargoyle notices the new kid ain’t singing the Star Spangled Banner!

She makes him stand back up and sing it by himself.

Now, Joe couldn’t carry a tune in a Brinks truck with a police motorcade accompanying him. He’s maybe two lines into the song when the picture of Pope Paul VI FELL. OFF. THE. WALL.

Sister Gargoyle had a HELL of a time getting back control of the class -and it served her right.

I believe Pope Paul gave my buddy Joe a Papal dispensation from having to sing ever again

[quaker bill]

21. ACLU

They are the ones who won the right to sit during the pledge back in the 60s. The kid was absolutely within his rights to refuse.

[3catwoman3]

22. Our local elementary school insisted that the then-8 year old...

…son of friends of ours say the pledge even though the family was from England and here on an extended work visa because of the dad/husband’s field of expertise!

The mom decided not to fight it.

I thought it was completely and infuriatingly ridiculous of the school to force this and would have raised holy hell.

[róisín_dubh]

52. I was talking to my partner's sons

about the pledge. I think they thought I was lying when I told them we said it daily at school from kindergarten to graduation. They’re all three born in England but their father (my partner) was born and raised in Scotland. I couldn’t imagine the stink he’d raise if his kids had to pledge allegiance to England (or the US for that matter).

[3catwoman3]

64. I finished high school in 1969. I can't say I remember...

…if we did this starting in KG, but very likely. I don’t remember it ever being a new thing, and by junior high (as it was known “back then”) it was such a rote ritual as to be pretty much meaningless.

[tblue37]

24. I hope his lawsuit gets him enough for college and a nice nest egg.

[Ms. Toad]

27. 1. Blatantly unconstitutional.

Free speech includes the right to be free from compelled political speech.

2. That could easily have been me. I've been refusing to say the pledge of allegiance, or sing the national anthem, since I was around the same age.

3. Fortunately friends of mine walked that path before me - Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District had just been decided. That made some of the challenges I had with my school district much easier. (Different issue - but it brought the first amendment rights of students into the headlines, since the case which expressly decided the pledge issue was nearly a quarter of a century old by that time, and no longer on the top of mind of those in charge of schools.)

[old as dirt]

67. Mary Beth Tinker has been talking about Free Speech here in Iowa, recently.

There's a lot of confusion going around over the distinctions between free speech and invading the rights of others.

3. Fortunately friends of mine walked that path before me - Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District had just been decided. That made some of the challenges I had with my school district much easier. (Different issue - but it brought the first amendment rights of students into the headlines, since the case which expressly decided the pledge issue was nearly a quarter of a century old by that time, and no longer on the top of mind of those in charge of schools.)

An Iowa school suspended a student for wearing a T-shirt depicting a gun. Now she's suing

Des Moines Register



snip-------------

Mary Beth Tinker: Some clothing bans OK



Mary Beth Tinker talked about free speech issues to students from various high schools in Iowa during a program making the 50th anniversary of the Tinker vs Des Moines free speech case in 2019 at the State Historical Society of Iowa building in Des Moines.

The student's lawsuit draws many parallels to Tinker vs. Des Moines, which began in 1965 when lead plaintiff Mary Beth Tinker, then a 13-year-old student at what is now Des Moines' Warren Harding Middle School, was suspended along with other students for wearing black armbands after a school board order not to.

Yet Tinker herself told the Des Moines Register she thinks the Johnston district is likely to win if the lawsuit reaches a judgment on the merits.

"Under (the Tinker decision), there is ample room for the censorship of messages that impinge on the rights of others, the often-overlooked second part of the Tinker test," Tinker said in an email, pointing to the Supreme Court's holding that "conduct by the student ... which for any reason ... involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others is, of course, not immunized by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech."

Tinker said she believes wearing a shirt to school depicting a gun might constitute such an invasion of the rights of others, not just of other students, but of teachers, staff and visitors to the school.

But another expert, Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said he doubts a court would accept that argument.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2023/02/08/pro-gun-rights-t-shirt-prompts-suspension-iowa-student-sues-schools-second-amendment-free-speech/69881634007/

[Ms. Toad]

68. It's been a while since I've seen her.

Post-childhood, I kept in touch more with her older sister and her mother. When she (her sister) died, I got back in touch with the rest of the clan. At least since then, she's been doing a lot of taking about free speech in schools.

(We were part of the same faith community, and went to "summer camp" with the entire family for several years. Her older sister, mother and I remained active in the faith community so we saw each nearly every summer until they died.)

[old as dirt]

80. Sounds like you got some great memories.

Mary Beth and John Tinker Describe Their Reactions to Supreme Court Case Success

[Ms. Toad]

83. Thanks for the link!

Great memories - along with a few sad ones. Mary Beth's older sister was killed in a bike/car accident at one of the summer gatherings her sister and I were attending. While it was nice to reconnect with Mary Beth, I wish it hadn't been on the occasion of her sister's death.

[sdfernando]

28. The school district

is going to lose a ton of $$$ because of this. If that unqualified sub didn’t know the law n the respect the administration certainly did!

[wnylib]

49. Not to mention the effing police.

[Phoenix61]

30. She seems to be one of the Cubans who would vote for DeSatan.

That she got into an argument with a child is ridiculous. That he was arrested is why cops shouldn’t be on school campuses.

[Stinky The Clown]

33. Florida

S'all ya need ta know.

Florida

[OMGWTF]

34. Fk Floriduh. My USCG son just got a promotion and may be relocating his family from VA.

I am praying to the Goddess that he doesn't end up in a shithole state like FL, MS, AL, LA, or TX.

[SouthernDem4ever]

35. There's a religion in this country that won't say the pledge

well, you can call it a religion, really a cult but are they going to jail all those kids too?

[AllaN01Bear]

36. hope mom sues school and gov deathsentance .

[Tansy_Gold]

38. Date on the article is 2-14-2019. Four year old news?

[Nevilledog]

42. Totally missed it

Here's where I saw the date



It had the 2019 under the byline

[tornado34jh]

39. I think I read this story before

I don't think the article is new. What I used to believe when I was in school was that it was nothing more than blind faith/allegiance to a country that quite frankly right now doesn't really deserve it. As I see it, it has to be earned, not given.

[progressoid]

41. Yes, it's from Feb. 17, 2019

Although it could have been from today. I don't think things have gotten any better in the last 4 years.

[tornado34jh]

45. I thought so

However, I think the point still stands, forced patriotism is more like what you see in authoritarian countries like China, North Korea and so forth. When I read it, I thought, for all the rightful criticism we give to these countries, in some ways many people want us to be like them. They say if we don't do the Pledge of Allegiance we disrespect the military or what not. The military does not have a monopoly on the flag, and it is the government that sends them to these wars. I also see it as flag worship.

[Abolishinist]

43. "Walkin' Lawton" Chiles was the last Democrat elected to the Governship of FL.

He died in office in 1998, just three weeks before his long-awaited retirement was to begin. Chiles suffered a fatal heart attack while exercising on a cycling machine in the Governor's Mansion gymnasium. He died suddenly shortly afterwards, at the age of 68.

Another one no doubt turning over in their grave.

[tirebiter]

47. Air Force Brat here.

I got the lowdown from a very liberal teacher in my army school in West Germany in 1962. 6th grade. Kennedy hadn’t been assassin yet. A few of us would experiment with interpretation of the words spoken or not spoken. We felt like it was something liked and if not, we figured we had license. Not in those terms, but we thought we were cool like having a private joke that we thought was hilarious.

[DFW]

46. I hope the sub is fired, the school sued (ACLU!!) and the cop is fired for false arrest

What cop arrests an 11 year old kid for something that isn't even a crime?

These fanatics have no earthly clue how totally oddball this comes across to people from other countries.

For their high school year abroad (German schools encourage this), my daughters chose to go to the USA. They are both dual nationals who were both born and raised in Germany, and although I always spoke to them in English, and they are now fluent, their native language and culture remains German.

My elder daughter chose to go to the local high school where my Dallas residence was/is. Since I had a legal residence there, it was no problem enrolling her. My roomies there had no problem making room for her. When school started, I stuck around for a week, in case there were any difficulties to iron out, since, although she had visited a couple of times a year, she had never lived in the States before.

After a day or two, I asked how she was adjusting. She said it seemed OK, although the kids there were fascinated by the exotic method of conveyance she used to get to school (a bicycle that I had bought her for this purpose). It seems that in Dallas, NOBODY uses a bicycle to get to school. In Germany, lots of kids do, especially since the driving age there is 18. My wife did when she was that age, and since our part of Dallas was flat, it seemed logical. Oops. If she flown in with her own helicopter, they probably wouldn't have been more amazed.

Then, there was the ritual chanting, which she found very odd.

Ritual chanting? In a Dallas public school? Yep, every morning--unison ritual ritual chanting. Like Buddhist monks do (we had seen documentaries)? She said, yeah, not quite, but similar.

I asked, "What do they chant?"

She said they mostly mumbled it in a disinterested monotone. Her English was pretty good, but she couldn't make most of it out. But, so she said, it started out with "I spread the peaches." Now, she does not lie, but this sounded like some teen science fiction movie. "The Invasion of the Texas Fruit Children?" Dallas teenagers go into a trance and recite in unison, "I spread the peaches?" Is that all they do? She said, and they all stand up to do it. This was getting too weird. Some obscure cult inside the Dallas school system?

She then added, oh, yeah, and they all put their right hands on their chests. Uh-oh. I had forgotten that they still do this in American public schools, and never told her. Her English was very good by age 16, but we never use words like "pledge" or "allegiance" in everyday conversation, so she wasn't familiar with either. She just heard words that she found the most familiar. I explained to her about the Pledge of Allegiance. In Germany, exaggerated rituals of patriotism are frowned upon as too reminiscent of the Nazi era, so she had no idea what was going on. Even after I explained it to her, she still was confused about why American schoolkids, especially since most of them had never even been to another country, needed to be reminded every morning what country they came from.

She decided to stand and mumble "I spread the peaches" with the rest of them, so as not to stand out, but she always found it a very weird thing to do, and never understood the purpose of it.

**on edit--two years later, our younger daughter also wanted to go to the USA for her high school year abroad, but she wanted a completely different experience from that of her sister. I had started putting money away for their educations long ago, in case they ended up wanting to go to college in the USA, so I was prepared when she said she wanted to go to a boarding school. I was NOT prepared when she ended up choosing, and being accepted by, a school on the Big Island of Hawaii, but I had told them both that I wanted them to forge their own paths. So, Big Island it was. Luckily, the school in Hawaii had no such ritual. So, even she was prepared to be spreading the peaches (or pineapples or lillikoi, or whatever), she never had to.

[Sky Jewels]

50. Is it Fascism yet?

[orleans]

51. here's a bit of a follow-up from the following month

nutshell: charges were dropped against the kid and it didn't look like anyone was going after the district for not informing the sub (who won't be teaching in the district anymore)

https://www.becauseofthemwecan.com/blogs/culture/thanks-to-jay-zs-roc-nation-the-case-against-6th-grader-who-didnt-stand-for-pledge-of-allegiance-has-been-dismissed

[Wild blueberry]

78. Thank you for the update

[Beautiful Disaster]

53. BTW, this is from 2019.

[Martin Eden]

54. One Nation, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All

Which parts of that are true?

I omitted "under God" which was added later, and violates the separation of church and state. So does our currency AFAIC.

[Dorian Gray]

58. That boy has confidence

and the fighting spirit. I hope he never loses that.

Arresting him for this is absolutely ridiculous. The cops should have point blank refused to deal with this when they realized what the situation was. (Which leads me to believe they didn't like him for either his blackness or his anti-patriotism.)

The substitute teachers sucks ass. As does the school for allowing this to escalate. And the police for doing their bidding.

[ProfessorGAC]

60. A Sub Did This?

As a sub, I say that person should never be allowed in another school. Ever.
This is not a substitute teacher's place!
And, the administration should have immediately deescalated. Lots of screw-ups here.

[intheflow]

62. The best part of this story is the school admitting

it’s not illegal to refuse to say the pledge - to the press. The mother has grounds for a lawsuit. I mean, telling a Black American CHILD to go back to where he came from? Fuck you, lady, who probably came in on a plane because the boat people get sent back to Cuba. She should never have been near a classroom, and the school needs to vet their subs better.

[twodogsbarking]

70. Just say blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, for all.

[Ligyron]

73. Hopefully the kid won a million dollar judgment and the administration were all fired.

He'd be in High School now anyway if not completely soured on public schools.

[Evolve Dammit]

74. Illegal, fascist and disgusting. It's free speech and not illegal to not stand for "the pledge".

[steventh]

81. UPDATES

To those who opined that the substitute teacher should be fired, she was, and will not be allowed to teach in the district again. "A spokeswoman with the school district said students aren't required to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance, but the substitute teacher wasn't aware of this. The spokeswoman said the substitute teacher will no longer be able to work at any of the district's schools and the district is still looking into the matter."

https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2019/02/14/mother-upset-after-son-kicked-out-of-class-over-pledge-of-allegiance

The mother filed a civil rights action.

In the complaint to the United States Department of Education, the student denies being disruptive while walking to the office. The complaint highlights the school resource grabbing the student’s arm in an attempt to remove him from the classroom, calling it “offensive touching”, and stating it created a hostile learning environment....

His mother came to the school and the complaint says the dean was going to let the student go home with his mother but the school resource officer refused and said he was being arrested. The 11 year old was in a juvenile detention center for four hours, according to the complaint....

The student has since transferred to a private school. State Attorney Brian Haas said the case was never submitted to his office for prosecution.

https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2019/02/24/mother-files-civil-rights-complaint-after-pledge-of-allegiance-dispute

According to the student's attorney, the criminal case is closed. The attorney "does not think the civil rights case should go to trial, although he is prepared to argue it in court. Instead, he said, he hopes the Department of Education will bring all parties together to reach a 'fair and just resolution of this case.'”

https://www.theledger.com/story/news/education/2019/03/06/polk-student-at-center-of-pledge-flap-sees-case-closed/5777369007/

[AZLD4Candidate]

82. 1943 - West Virigina V Barnette. 1968 - Tinker V. Des Moines

Case closed.