Houston Student Suing School Over Expulsion for Refusing to Stand for the Pledge

A student from the Cypress-Fairbanks School District in Houston is suing her school district after she claims she was expelled over a refusal to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

India Landry, 17, says she was in the principal’s office of Windfern High School on Oct. 2 when the Pledge of Allegiance came over the loudspeaker system. Landry says she was told to stand for the pledge and that when she refused her principal, Martha Strother, told her she was “kicked out of here.”

Landry told KHOU that she chose not to stand for the pledge for because it goes against her personal beliefs. “I don’t think the flag is for what it says it’s for, liberty and justice and … all that. It’s not obviously what’s going on in America today.”

Officials from the school district released a statement to KHOU that simply said, “A student will not be removed from campus for refusing to stand for the Pledge. We will address this situation internally.”

Landry had been refusing to stand for the pledge for months prior to the Oct. 2 incident, according to news reports.

Read more coverage on the issue from the Washington Post.

Shopping Cart
Scroll to Top