HomeCrimeTeacher pushed student Marissa Barnwell over pledge: lawsuit

Teacher pushed student Marissa Barnwell over pledge: lawsuit

Marissa Barnwell, a River Bluff High School student, her parents and their lawyer, Tyler Bailey, hold a news conference in Columbia, S.C., on Thursday, March 9, 2023, regarding a lawsuit filed against Lexington School District One. Marissa said she was walking quietly to class and decided not to stop for the pledge or a moment of silence that followed. A teacher yelled at her, confronted her and pushed her against a wall. (Alexa Jurado/The State via AP)

A South Carolina honor roll student says that she was assaulted by a teacher and pushed up against a wall because she didn’t recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Marissa Barnwell, 15, says that River Bluff High School teacher Nicole Livingston assaulted her in late November in an apparent attempt to stop the student from walking in the hallway as the Pledge of Allegiance was recited over the school loudspeakers.

Although Barnwell was walking “silently in a non-disruptive manner to her class” during the Pledge of Allegiance, teacher Nicole Livingston allegedly accosted her by “yelling and demanding that M.B. stop walking and physically assaulting her by pushing M.B., on the wall and forcefully touching M.B., 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,” according to a lawsuit filed in February.

Barnwell has publicly acknowledged that she is the student in the lawsuit, although the complaint refers to her by her initials only, as she is a minor.

According to the complaint, Livingston then took Barnwell to school principal Jacob Smith’s office.

“M.B. was extremely upset and emotionally disturbed about being taken to the principal’s office as she believed she was being punished for having done something wrong,” the complaint says.

Smith allegedly told Barnwell that he would review surveillance footage from the incident and sent her back to class. According to the lawsuit, the principal “never informed M.B., that she was exempt from participating in the Pledge of Allegiance and should not be penalized for failing to participate.”

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