School district sued for handling student pledge protest

The parents of a South Carolina ninth-grader said in a federal lawsuit that a teacher pushed their daughter against a wall after she ignored demands to acknowledge the Pledge of Allegiance as broadcast over her high school’s intercom.

The 15-year-old student, Marissa Barnwell, and her parents said the school district did not respond to their questions about the episode, prompting them to file a federal lawsuit last month.

“I feel like something should have happened to the teacher, and the teacher should have been treated appropriately, where she was either arrested or fired,” Marissa said in an interview Saturday. “But nothing like that has happened yet and she still works there.”

The family’s lawsuit accuses the South Carolina Department of Education, Lexington County School District One and specific district employees of violating Marissa’s constitutional rights.

The teacher, identified in the lawsuit as Nicole Livingston, the school district and the Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday. Libby Roof, the chief communications officer for Lexington School District One, said in an email Saturday that the district’s attorney was preparing a response to the lawsuit. “It will be submitted in the coming weeks,” she said.

Under federal and South Carolina law, no one can be compelled to make the Pledge of Allegiance.

Marissa, who is black, said she stopped reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in third grade because she did not believe the message of “freedom and justice for all” was being applied fairly in the United States.

Ryan Julison, a spokesman for the family’s attorney, Tyler Bailey, said a fifth-grade teacher in the same district once called the Barnwells to say that Marissa was not reciting the pledge. When the teacher was told that Marissa wouldn’t be forced to say it, nothing came of it, Mr. Julison said.

Marissa said she was inspired in part by Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL player who protested police brutality and racial injustice by getting down on one knee during the national anthem during football games. She said she was also moved to activism by the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, which she says inspired her to be more passionate about “standing up for black people, the black community.”

Marissa said that on the morning of Nov. 29 — her birthday — she was walking to class at River Bluff High School in Lexington, SC, as the Pledge of Allegiance was broadcast over an intercom when Ms. Livingston began yelling “stop.”

Marissa said she did not know Mrs. Livingston and assumed the warrants were not directed at her.

“When she said ‘stop’ for the third time, she grabbed me, she just ambushed me, and she just attacked me and started pushing me against the wall,” Marissa said.

Her family’s lawyer shared security footage from the school showing other students walking on that day as the promise was made.

“I could tell this outrage and anger of hers was very political, and she was targeting me for being black,” Marissa said. River Bluff High School predominantly white.

According to the lawsuit, the teacher took Marissa to the principal’s office. The principal, Jacob Smith, told Marissa he would review the security footage and send her back to class, the lawsuit said. Marissa then called her mother, in tears, and told them what had happened. Mr. Smith could not be reached on Saturday.

Marissa, an honor student who participates in extracurricular activities including cheerleading, said walking down the same hallway has been “mentally draining” ever since.

Marissa’s mother, Fynale Barnwell, said she and Marissa’s father, Shavell Barnwell, repeatedly tried to meet with school, district and city officials to discuss how to address the family’s concerns.

She said they went to a school board meeting on Jan. 10 to talk about “our dissatisfaction and discomfort with the way the situation was being handled and handled.” No one tried to “work with us or talk to us,” she said.

Ms Barnwell said people had been making derogatory comments about her daughter and family online since they held a press conference on Thursday to discuss the lawsuit.

Mr Barnwell said the principal called Ms Barnwell on Friday and told her he treated all his students like his children.

“That call should have been made right after the incident,” said Mr Barnwell.