Florida teacher who implied child should go back to Africa needs lesson on First Amendment | Editorial

A sixth-grader in Lakeland now has a police record for having refused to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance on Feb. 4. To hear adults speak about it, it isn’t because he exercised his absolute constitutional right to shun the pledge at Lawton Chiles Middle Academy. Rather, it’s because of what they called his disruptive behavior after the teacher, substitute Ana Alvarez, provoked him. Their excuse is pathetic.

By the teacher’s own handwritten account, she goaded the boy after he said he considered the flag and the national anthem to be “racist” against black people. Why, then, not go someplace else to live? Yes, a grown woman said that to a child.

“They brought me here,” the boy replied.

“Well, you can always go back,” she said, “because I came here from Cuba, and the day I feel I’m not welcome here anymore, I would find another place to live.” She called for school administrators, which is when matters went from bad to worse. Why did she alert the office? “Because I did not want to continue dealing with him.”