SC school district to pay family $75,000 after teacher assaults girl for not saying the Pledge
"I was completely and utterly disrespected," said 15-year-old Marissa Barnwell at the time
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Two years ago, a teenage girl from South Carolina sued her school district, claiming she was physically assaulted by a teacher for not saying the Pledge of Allegiance.
That case has finally been settled.
This story has been on my mind ever since the family and their lawyer went public about what happened.
According to the lawsuit, then-15-year-old freshman Marissa Barnwell, a Black girl who was an honor roll student at River Bluff High School, was walking to class on November 29, 2022 (her birthday, coincidentally) when the Pledge began playing over the school’s intercom.
South Carolina requires schools to say the Pledge, but the law specifically says students don’t have to participate and that they “may not be penalized for failing to participate.” They can leave the classroom or remain silent and seated.
Marissa wasn’t even in a classroom so it shouldn’t have been an issue at all that she kept walking when the Pledge came over the loudspeakers. Other students were walking, too, she said, but she was the only one singled out by Nicole Livingston, a special education teacher:
While [Marissa], was walking to her class, Defendant Nicole Livingston violated [Marissa’s] constitutional rights by yelling and demanding that [Marissa] stop walking and physically assaulting her by pushing [Marissa], on the wall and forcefully touching [Marissa], in an unwanted way without her consent so that she would stop walking in recognition of the Pledge of Allegiance and Moment of Silence that was announced at the conclusion of the Pledge.
Livingston then took Marissa to the principal’s office. Principal Jacob Smith said he would “review video footage” but never pointed out that Marissa’s actions were legal. He just offered her some food and sent her back to class. The parents weren’t even given a courtesy phone call by school officials—not at the time and not when they filed the lawsuit.
During a press conference in March of 2023, Marissa alluded to that video, saying it confirmed her side of the story:
“I was just in disbelief,” Barnwell said. “You can hear me say in the video, ‘Get your hands off of me.’”
…
“I was completely and utterly disrespected,” Barnwell said at a news conference Thursday. “No one has apologized, no one has acknowledged my hurt. ... The fact that the school is defending that kind of behavior is [unimaginable].”
A brief clip of the video was seen at The State’s website. While audio couldn’t be heard, you could see Livingston confronting Marissa in a way that seemed utterly unnecessary if the allegations were accurate and this was all about her not saying the Pledge.
Marissa’s parents, Fynale and Shavell Barnwell, got a call from their daughter shortly after the incident, when she was tearing up from what had transpired. They were shocked to learn what happened and, since that time, they’ve been demanding some measure of accountability from the school. That accountability never came, creating an “unreasonable risk of harm to students.” While Livingston no longer seems to be employed by the school, there’s no indication she was ever punished in any meaningful way.
That’s why the Barnwells filed their lawsuit as a last resort:
… Defendants Lexington School District One, Superintendent Gerrita Postlewait, and Principal Jacob Smith, continued to employ and retained Nicole Livingston, took no measures to ensure that she was not allowed to assault students or continue to force, demand, coerce, or attempt to force, coerce, or demand students into reciting the Pledge of Allegiance or engaging in conduct that she seems fit during the moment of silence, nor did they take any measures to ensure the safety, security, and constitutional rights of students wishing to exercise their First Amendment rights during the Pledge of Allegiance, including Plaintiff.
This wasn’t merely about protecting Marissa’s right not to say the Pledge; this was about protecting students from the adults who are supposed to look out for them.
There was also the racial element to consider. River Bluff is a school where 73% of students are white, and Marissa believed she was singled out (despite not being the only student walking during the Pledge) because she’s Black. She said during the press conference that her Black friends had experienced similar feelings of racism over the years, though none that involved a teacher physically attacking them.
In addition to suing the district and its leaders for being “negligent, careless, reckless, and grossly negligent,” the family said the district violated Marissa’s civil rights under the Fourteenth Amendment (due process and equal protection) and the First Amendment (free speech). They were seeking actual, incidental, consequential and punitive damages of whatever amount a court deemed fit along with legal fees.
Also, while the reason Marissa doesn’t say the Pledge wasn’t relevant to the lawsuit, she justified it during the press conference, saying she stopped reciting it in third grade. She recognized that we don’t actually have “liberty and justice for all” in the country and didn’t want to recite any pledge that suggested otherwise.
And now, finally, the two sides have settled the case.
The Sunday filing from the U.S. District Court of South Carolina actually includes a few more details that were not offered in the initial lawsuit. For example, the family initially said Marissa was sent to the principal’s office, where she was told Principal Jacob Smith would review the footage before sending her back to class. The settlement notes that Smith questioned Marissa’s patriotism, asked whether “she loved her country,” and pressured her “to abandon her silent objection to the pledge.”
But the bottom line is that all sides met in December and hashed out an agreement that will require the school district to pay the Barnwells $75,000. About $47,000 of that will be set aside for Marissa when she turns 18. The rest will go towards legal fees.
It’s at least some measure of justice for what the district put Marissa through. But the settlement does not include any formal apology from the district or any acknowledgment that they did anything wrong. As of this writing, the district has not issued any statement about the settlement.
Attorney Tyler Bailey, who represented the Barnwells, did not respond to a request for comment.
South Carolina. White teacher assaults black student. Two fucking years before any sort of accountability. If it were a white student and a black teacher, that teacher would have been in jail the same day. How much of this settlement is coming out of the pockets of the assaulter and her enabler? My guess is zero. It's the taxpayers on the hook.
And then there is the jingoism she was subject to. It seems to me that Ms Barnwell does indeed love her country. Refusing to say the pledge because we are nowhere near the ideal of liberty and justice for all shows me that this young woman loves her country far more than the jingoistic fools that demanded she recite a meaningless loyalty oath.
You there! You do not appear sufficiently deferential to my ideas about patriotism! HOW DARE YOU.