Ken Paxton Backs Expulsion of Student Who Refused to Stand for the Pledge of Allegiance
In the fall of 2017, seventeen-year-old India Landry was expelled from Windfern High School in Cy-Fair, outside of Houston. She’d been in trouble at the school that year, but not for her grades or disciplinary issues. Rather, she was in the principal’s office after being kicked out of English class five times already that semester for her refusal to stand during the pledge of allegiance. When the pledge came over the intercom that morning, she again stayed seated, while the principal and a school secretary stood. The principal asked her to stand, she told KHOU. “I said I wouldn’t, and she said, ‘Well, you’re kicked out of here,'” Landry told reporters.
Landry had refused to stand for the anthem for a year and a half, according to a New York Times story from last fall, before she was expelled. After the case received media attention, principal Martha Strother reversed course and allowed Landry to resume classes. The lawsuit Landry filed in response to her initial expulsion, though, remains in court, challenging the constitutionality of a Texas law that requires students to have written parental permission in order to decline to stand for the pledge of allegiance.
Texas law requires students to recite the pledge (under the statute, standing isn’t required) with the caveat that “On written request from a student’s parent or guardian, a school district or open-enrollment charter school shall excuse the student from reciting a pledge of allegiance.” This week, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that he’d be using his office to attempt to ensure that section of the Texas Education Code remains in place amid the legal challenge.
The suit—and Paxton’s response—raise a few questions. Paxton’s motion to intervene argues that the state has an interest in ensuring that the daily recitation of the pledge of allegiance is included as part of the educational experience of every Texan, and states that the parental opt-out offers an appropriate remedy to families concerned that the forced recitation of the pledge goes against their values. Landry’s suit argues that students have free speech rights irrespective of their parents, and that those rights are violated by the statute in question.
Read more: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/ken-paxton-high-school-pledge-allegiance/
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