Copyright postandcourier
COLUMBIA — Lexington One paid $75,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging that a 15-year-old student was stopped by a teacher in a school hallway and taken to the principal’s office after she didn’t recognize the Pledge of Allegiance in 2022. The federal complaint against the school district filed in 2023 by student Marissa Barnwell’s family argued that the incident violated multiple constitutional rights, including her right under the First Amendment to protest the pledge. Lexington One denied the allegations. It previously argued in court filings that Barnwell was stopped not during the pledge but during a subsequent moment of silence, and was not subject to any discipline after the incident. Barnwell was silently walking through a hallway at River Bluff High School as the pledge played over the intercom on Nov. 29, 2022, when teacher Nicole Livingston yelled at her to stop and ”physically stopped her movement,” according to the narrative in a May order from a Lexington County judge approving the settlement. The teacher then took Barnwell to Principal Jacob Smith’s office. The lawsuit alleges that Smith questioned her patriotism before sending her back to class. Other students were in the same area of the hallway and were also not reciting the pledge, but Barnwell was the only African American student and the only one stopped, the order from Circuit Judge William Keesley said.
