Houston Student Awarded $90K Settlement After Being Bullied By Teacher For Not Standing For Pledge Of Allegiance
A Houston-area student has won a $90,000 settlement after allegedly being harassed and bullied by her teachers for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
According to the civil rights organization American Atheists, the Texas Association of School Boards paid to resolve the case after the Klein Oak High School student’s 12th-grade sociology teacher agreed to settle before things went to trial.
The Houston Chronicle reports that in the 2017 lawsuit the nonreligious student says she was discriminated against and harassed by several teachers after she didn’t say the pledge out of objection to the words “Under God” and her belief that “liberty and justice for all” is not guaranteed for people of color in the United States.
Despite knowing that the student was exempt from reciting the pledge, her teacher, identified in the suit as Benjie Arnold, singled her out and allegedly threatened to fail her for not following along. According to a press release obtained by the Chronicle, Arnold told the student she left him "no option but to give you a zero, and you can have all the beliefs and resentment and animosity that you want."
Arnold is also accused of offering to pay students to move to Europe if they didn’t like living in America. Due to the alleged continual harassment, the student temporarily withdrew to be homeschooled. When the student returned to school, however, the alleged harassment intensified, according to the release.
Houston civil rights attorney Randall Kallinen said in the release, "It is incredible—the time and money spent by the Klein Independent School District to stop a student’s free speech. School staff need to teach the Constitution, not violate it.”
The Courthouse News Service reports that Arnold is still a teacher at Klein Oak High School.
