A teacher in North Carolina was suspended for stepping on the American flag in what he called an “example of free speech.”
Lee Francis, an honors history teacher in Fayetteville, North Carolina, wanted to teach students the Supreme Court definition of free speech as decided in the case Texas v. Johnson. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that desecrating the flag was protected under the First Amendment, despite how people may feel about the issue. Francis stepped on the flag twice with his right foot to show students that this was protected by the First Amendment, but he says he was not doing it to be disrespectful and he was not attempting to protest the flag.
Some students, however, did not like the way Francis decided to teach the lesson. “As soon as the flag hit the ground and I stepped on it, two students got up and left immediately with no word, no disruption at all, got up and left. I assumed something had happened. One student came to where I was and took the flag from me,” Francis said.
School superintendent Frank Till also took issue with Francis’ teaching style. “Clearly, there are other ways to teach First Amendment rights without desecrating a flag,” he said in a statement. Francis recognizes that there are other ways, but he still defends the way he went about teaching the lesson. “Absolutely there could be other ways to teach the subject,” Francis said, “but in the same vain, the way that I taught it can’t necessarily be wrong.” Francis has been suspended while an investigation is ongoing, and parents are calling for him to be fired.
