Texas School Suspends Student for Declining to Worship the Flag—Because That’s What America’s All About

If
you are a fan of the First Amendment, you probably have heard of

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the
1943 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court said public schools may
not force students to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance. I am
guessing that officials at Needville High School have not heard of
Barnette, because if they had they probably would have
thought twice about suspending 15-year-old Mason Michalec for
refusing to stand during the pledge. KHOU, the CBS station in
Houston (which is about 45 miles from Needville),
reports that Michalec was given a two-day in-school
suspension for remaining seated. Now the principal is threatening
him with another suspension unless he gets with the program.

Michalec explained that he sat as an act of protest because he
was “really tired of our government taking advantage of us.”
He added, “I basically said it from the time I was in
kindergarten to earlier this year, and that’s when I finally
decided I was done saying it….I’m angry, frustrated and annoyed
that they would try to write me up for something I have the right
to do.”

Barnette involved Jehovah’s Witnesses, who object to
flag worship because they (quite plausibly) view it as a form of
idolatry. But the decision was based on freedom of speech, which
includes the right to refrain from agreement, as well as freedom of
religion. Justice Robert Jackson seemed to think the principles at
stake were pretty important:

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation,
it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be
orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of
opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith
therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception,
they do not now occur to us. 

We think the action of the local authorities in compelling the
flag salute and pledge transcends constitutional limitations on
their power and invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it
is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to
reserve from all official control.

Maybe the teacher and principal who suspended Michalec thought
making him stand for the Pledge of Allegiance was fundamentally
different from making him recite it or making him salute the flag.
(It’s
not.) More likely, they did not think at all.