Pledge of Allegiance

HOUSTON – A federal court in Texas ruled that a former high school student may pursue her compelled-speech claim against the sociology teacher she says tried to make her transcribe the Pledge of Allegiance and who allegedly compared people who abstain from saying the pledge to “Soviet communists, supporters of Sharia, and people who condone pedophilia.”

The former student’s free-speech claims against other teachers, alleging she was disciplined and harassed for sitting silently during the pledge, fail because the alleged misconduct occurred before the student’s mother sent in a request for her child to be exempt from saying the pledge in school.