Texas student settles with teacher over Pledge of Allegiance incident

A instructor who tried to power a pupil to put in writing the Pledge of Allegiance settled a lawsuit with the previous excessive schooler for $90,000.  

American Atheists, the group that represented the nonreligious pupil, confirmed in an announcement on Tuesday that the scholar’s Twelfth-grade sociology instructor at Klein Oak Excessive College, situated north of Houston, agreed to settle the case. The Texas Affiliation of College Boards paid the settlement to resolve the case. 

“Nonreligious college students typically face bullying or harassment for expressing their deeply held convictions,” Nick Fish, president of American Atheists, stated within the assertion. “Nobody ought to need to endure the years of harassment, disrespect and bullying our consumer confronted. The truth that this occurred in a public college and by the hands of workers who ought to know higher is especially appalling.”  

The coed within the case, recognized as Mari Oliver in a number of stories, declined to recite the Pledge of Allegiance all through her time in highschool, objecting to the phrases “beneath God.” She additionally cited her “perception that america doesn’t adequately assure ‘liberty and justice for all,’ particularly for folks of coloration,” in response to the Tuesday assertion.  

American Atheists stated the instructor within the case, recognized as Benjie Arnold, required Oliver and different college students to put in writing out the pledge in 2017, and, after Oliver refused, he advised her she can be failed on an project. The group stated he additionally supplied to pay college students to maneuver overseas if they’d criticisms about america, however they must pay him double in the event that they got here again to the nation.  

Based on the lawsuit filed by Oliver, Arnold in contrast individuals who refuse to say the pledge “to Soviet communists, members of the Islamic religion searching for to impose Sharia legislation, and those that condone pedophilia.”  

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The Klein Impartial College District in an announcement to USA TODAY stated it did “not enter into any settlement on this matter.” The district additionally confirmed to USA TODAY that Arnold remains to be employed. 

Oliver’s mom first sued Arnold, the college district and different academics in 2017. Oliver has since taken over the case. A federal choose in 2020 dismissed the lawsuit towards the district and college staff aside from Arnold. 

The Supreme Court docket has dominated that college students can’t be compelled to salute the flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance as a result of it will violate their rights beneath the First Modification.   

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