Texas student wins $90K settlement from teacher after sitting out Pledge of Allegiance

HOUSTON — A Texas high school student won a $90,000 settlement from her former teacher after a lawsuit where she claimed several teachers harassed her and disciplined her for not standing for the Pledge of Allegiance, according to a news release.

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According to a statement on Tuesday from American Atheists, a civil rights organization, the Texas Association of School Boards paid to resolve the case after Benjie Harris, a 12th-grade sociology teacher at Klein Oak High School in the Houston suburb of Spring, agreed to settle the case brought by his former student, Mari Oliver, the Houston Chronicle reported.

“Nonreligious students often face bullying or harassment for expressing their deeply held convictions,” Nick Fish, president of American Atheists, said in the statement. “No one should have to endure the years of harassment, disrespect, and bullying our client faced. The fact that this happened in a public school and at the hands of staff who should know better is particularly appalling. After nearly five years of litigation, the defendant finally made the only smart decision and agreed to settle this case.”

Oliver also sued the school district, but a representative told the Chronicle that the district was removed from the case, a decision that was later upheld by a federal appeals court. U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal dismissed all the defendants except Arnold in a March 2020 order, according to Courthouse News Service. The judge found that factual disputes precluded her from granting Arnold’s qualified immunity defense and scheduled a jury trial.

The Texas Association of School Boards said the settlement was paid from a risk pool funded by Texas school districts, NBC News reported.

Arnold’s attorney, Thomas Brandt, did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment on the settlement, according to Courthouse News Service

The lawsuit, filed in 2017 by an attorney for American Atheists and a Houston civil rights lawyer, alleged that Oliver, who is nonreligious and Black, “endured discrimination and harassment for declining to participate in the pledge because she objected to the words ‘under God’ and believed that ‘liberty and justice for all’ is not guaranteed for people of color,” the Chronicle reported.

In the lawsuit, Arnold is accused of repeatedly harassing Oliver during two consecutive school years, the newspaper reported. The suit added that Arnold threatened to fail students who refused to participate in the pledge, saying that “what you’ve done is leave me no option but to give you a zero, and you can have all the beliefs and resentment and animosity that you want,” according to the American Atheists news release.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1943 decided that students may not be required to salute the American flag or recite the Pledge of Allegiance if it is against their religious beliefs, NBC News reported. The decision was reached in the case West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, according to the Chronicle.

In Texas, the law also stipulates that if a student has a written request to sit out the pledge from a parent or guardian, a public or charter school must honor that, according to NBC News.

Oliver’s mother had made the request, according to the lawsuit.

“It is incredible -- the time and money spent by the Klein Independent School District to stop a student’s free speech,” Texas civil rights attorney Randall Kallinen said in a statement. “School staff need to teach the Constitution -- not violate it.”

Arnold still teaches at Klein Oak, according to Courthouse News Service. He celebrated 50 years with the district in 2020.

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