Teachers face many challenges in America today. With low salaries and low school budgets, teachers are often forced to work after hours and buy their own school supplies. Not only do they go above and beyond to educate other people’s children, but they are also often the first people to face criticism if something “does not seem quite right.” Lee Francis is a dedicated teacher at Massey Hill Classical High School in Fayetteville, North Carolina, but his teaching methods were brought under scrutiny after he allegedly “stomped” on the American flag during his lesson on the First Amendment.
For those that do not know, the Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that protestors have the right to deface the American flag through burning or stomping. The high court decided that “symbolic speech” must be free as well. Therefore, protestors are allowed to do such a thing if they are trying to illustrate a point.
Teacher Francis wanted to do just that for his students. By choosing the controversial act of stomping on an American flag to illustrate every American citizen’s right to free speech, he knew he was bound to ruffle a few feathers – but he also knew that his lesson would stick with children for life.
Sara Taylor was one of the people whose feathers were ruffled. She’s the mother of a student at Massey Hill Classical High School and obtained footage of the lesson where Francis was filmed standing over the American flag before he “disrespected” the flag during his First Amendment lesson. Her child was not a student in the class.
Taylor described that Francis was forced to “stomp” on the flag because his students were not volunteering to deface it. He asked the class to hand him a pair of scissors so he could cut the flag to bits and pieces, which is protected behavior under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. When no one in his class was willing to do so, he stomped on the flag to prove his point about every Americans’ right to freedom of speech.
In her Facebook post, Taylor wrote: “Excuse me, THIS is part of their curriculum?!?! That flag might not mean anything to that teacher, but it means a lot to us, and it means a lot to the families who had their service member come home to them in a casket with that flag draped over it.”
Because Taylor and other parents were angry over Francis’s lesson, Cumberland County Superintendent Frank Till Jr. launched an investigation. Although the footage of Francis “stomping” on the flag has gone viral and has been circulating around the internet and through various news outlets, the school’s internal investigation is still yet to be closed. That means no action has yet been taken against Francis.
But Taylor does not think Francis should get off the hook on this one. Although it is his First Amendment right to do what he did – and he wanted to teach students the extremes of that right – she repeatedly called the school principal but has been ignored because her child was not a student in the class.
UPDATED: Lee Francis has been suspended.