Florida student arrested for agitation after refusing to take oath of allegiance, police say

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The news of the arrest has prompted criticism that the rights of the student's first amendment, which is black, have been violated. "It's outrageous – students do not lose their First Amendment rights when they enter school premises," the Florida ACLU wrote in a tweet. "This is an excellent example of the excessive surveillance exercised on schools by black students."

But the school district said Monday that the student "was NOT arrested for refusing to participate in the promise."

On February 4, the student at Lawton Chiles Middle Academy in Lakeland refused to take part in the oath of allegiance, according to the Polk County School District and Lakeland Police.

A substitute teacher in charge of the class was not aware that the district's code of conduct did not require student participation, the district said. The teacher exchanged words with the student and called the school administration, according to the district. A school resource officer also responded.

A school administrator and the officer asked the student to leave the class, but the 6th student refused, said Lakeland police. Lakeland police said the student, who had left the class, had created another disturbance and threatened to threaten him while he was escorted to the office.

He was arrested for disrupting the operation of a school and resisting an officer without violence, then taken to the juvenile assessment center, police said.

"We do not tolerate the behavior of the substitute," said the district on Monday in a statement. "We respect our students' right to freedom of expression and we are committed to protecting this essential right while ensuring peaceful classrooms so that all students can learn."

Dhakira Talbot, the mother of an 11-year-old who was arrested at the Lakeland School in Florida, said the school should have handled things differently.
The boy's mother told CNN's Spectrum Bay News 9 that she did not understand why the situation had worsened. Talbot told the station that his son was attending gifted classes and had already been bullied at school. She did not return CNN's calls.
"I'm angry, I'm angry, I'm hurt," Dhakira Talbot told the chain. "Even more for my son, my son has never experienced such a situation, and I feel that they should have handled it differently."

"If disciplinary action should have been taken, it should have been with the school," she said.

She stated that her son, who, according to the station, was 11 years old, "should not have been arrested."

In a statement to the school district after the incident obtained by Spectrum Bay News 9, the substitute teacher wrote that when she had asked the student to take a stand, he "had responded that he would not do it because the country's flag was racist, then began to explain why the national anthem was offensive to blacks ".

The dean of students who responded to the class asked the student to leave the classroom more than 20 times, said Lakeland police.

The campus school officer, who responded to the class, decided to arrest the student, school officials said. This officer was not called by the administration, said the district.

Nobody in the college has asked that charges be laid and the student be arrested, school officials said.

"This arrest was based on the student's choice to disrupt the class, make threats, and resist the officer's efforts to leave the class," Lakeland police said.

The substitute teacher involved in the incident was asked to leave the campus immediately, after making a written statement, said the district. She will no longer be allowed to work in district schools, according to the district.

Amir Vera, Samira Said and Dianne Gallagher from CNN contributed to this report.

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