BULLY FOR YOU

Texas Student Gets $90K After Refusing to Recite the Pledge of Allegiance

The student settled with a teacher who allegedly threatened to fail anyone who refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

A Texas high schooler has won $90,000 after settling with a former teacher in a lawsuit in which the student alleged the teacher and other educators had harassed and punished her for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. The student, a minor identified only by the initials M.O., alleged in her initial 2017 filing that she objected to a number of phrases in the pledge. “We live in a country where there isn’t justice and freedom for all, and so I’m not going to stand for a pledge that says there is,” M.O. said at a 2017 news conference announcing the suit. Sociology teacher Benjie Arnold bullied M.O. over two school years, she said. Arnold threatened to fail students who declined to participate in the pledge, saying it left him “no option but to give you a zero,” the student alleged. Civil rights attorney Randall Kallinen said Tuesday that the school district’s efforts “to stop a student’s free speech” were astounding. “School staff need to teach the Constitution, not violate it,” he said.