I have to agree with @Meili that we don't know enough about the manner of the child's disruptiveness. Then again, he's only 11. From the way it sounds, I can easily imagine the teacher physically trying to make the student stand, then the student trying to get free. While most of us surely wouldn't fault the student for trying to free himself from being manhandled, the adults involved would probably just see him as being disruptive.

I protested the pledge in high school, because there was no flag in the classroom. I did it in stages until the teacher finally sent me to the office. I then had to face the Vice Principal of Discipline, actually punishment, as they didn't know the difference. He was a West Point graduate and a Korean conflict veteran, telling me that they had to say the pledge in Korea and they couldn't even fly the flag there. I said this is not a war zone. There's no reason for there not to be a flag in the classrooms (I would say more than half were without). I told him he was full of shit. I don't remember what the punishment was or what exactly happened after seeing that idiot. Detention, I think.

Within a few weeks, there were new flags in apparently all classrooms. Nothing more was ever said to me about it.

I think in today's environment I would be too afraid of the consequences. All it takes is one adult to twist the facts for a kid to wind up in jail. And probably, by and large, the witness accounts of other students would be taken with a grain of salt. I think that's always been the case, but these days I can imagine things being even worse.

How dare that boy think. #sarcasm

If it was a white kid do you think he'd be arrested? As far as I know, there is no law that requires you to do the pledge, let alone stand for it.

I'll tell you my own story about shitty teachers. When I was in 1st grade a teacher demanded that the entire class put their heads on their desk. Everyone did but one. That one person was me. What was this punishment for you ask? There was a student that had a studder. The guy could not help it, and his brother just passed in a tragic farm accident. I remember the other kids telling me to put my head down. I still refused. The teacher then asked me to come to the front of the room. I was not only standing up for me, I was standing up for the other guy. When I got to the front she smacked me so hard in the face that I started bawling. She then drew a circle on the chalk board and made me put my nose against it. I switched schools, and that did go to court. She was never fired.

I often wonder what it would be like to smack her in the face. For no fucking reason. Bet I'd be in jail within minutes. One thing people need to realize about negative reinforcement is that some day they are going to be a lot stronger than you...

Not even legal to try and force anyone to do so. [en.m.wikipedia.org]

Fascism!

That teacher was WAY out of line and getting fired was understandable.

That said, I don't think we're given enough information to determine if the boy should have been arrested or not. He wasn't arrested for not standing but for being disruptive and details aren't given. Was it his continued refusal to stand that was disruptive or was he continuing to disrupt class after the matter was settled? Though he was in the right to refuse to stand, if there was more going on, arrest might have been justified. He could instead have complained about the teacher later on.

I can picture you being a 'troublemaker'.

An astoundingly stupid move by school faculty and police. What memory will that child have of this?

terrible!

You protested ‘duck and cover’? Can you expand on this some more?

My refusal to stand for the pledge in my senior year of high school got me a sincere talking-to by the vice principal, who wanted me to believe that the death of his 'Nam buddies--who ostensibly fought for "freedom"--obligated me to participate in a ritual. In America. Where we are free, and our heros die for freedom.

I didn't know shit about shit at that time but i knew enough to recognize a load of bullshit from a kool-aid-drinking, would-be manipulator when I heard it--and I started to wake up and grow up at that very moment.