SC student allegedly targeted for ignoring The Pledge. How much did it cost?
A River Bluff High School student sued a Lexington school district after she said she was physically assaulted by a teacher for refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance one morning in November 2022.
The district has paid her family $75,000 to settle the case, according to court records.
The parents of then-15-year-old Marissa Barnwell, sued Lexington 1 in February 2023, along with now-retired Superintendent Gerrita Postlewait, River Bluff Principal Jacob Smith, River Bluff teacher Nicole Livingston and the state Department of Education.
The lawsuit, which said that the student’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights had been violated, made national news.
Barnwell, a Black honor roll student, was walking in the hallway on her way to class when the Pledge of Allegiance began to play over the intercom, according to the federal lawsuit. She allegedly refrained, in a “non-disruptive manner,” to acknowledge the pledge as she walked into her classroom.
Livingston began yelling and demanded that Barnwell stop to acknowledge the pledge, then physically assaulted her by pushing her on a wall, according to the lawsuit. Livingston then escorted her to the principal’s office to be punished.
Other students were in the hallway, the lawsuit said. But Barnwell said she was the only African American in the hallway that morning, and she was targeted because of that. No other student was confronted by the teacher.
River Bluff is a majority-white high school.
“I was completely and utterly disrespected,” Marissa Barnwell said at a March 2023 press conference. “No one has apologized, no one has acknowledged my hurt. ... The fact that the school is defending that kind of behavior is unimaginable.”
Lexington One, which declined to provide comment for this story, previously asserted that the student hadn’t been assaulted, and hadn’t been targeted for ignoring the pledge. Barnwell, the district said, was never disciplined.
“Defendants readily admit it is not generally appropriate for a school district employee to push a student against a wall,” one court filing by the school district read. “Regardless of the exact nature of the touching that occurred in this case, Defendants assert it does not give rise to the causes of action alleged in this Complaint.”
With the $75,000 settlement, the claims leveraged in the lawsuit have been dismissed, according to a court order from U.S. District Judge Sherri Lydon. Approximately $47,000 will be deposited into an account for Barnwell, which she will have access to when she turns 18. The rest will go to attorney Tyler Bailey’s law firm for legal fees and services.
