High School Says It Will Kick Athletes Who Don’t Stand For Anthem Off Team

The debate over athletes standing for the national anthem has made it to high school.

President Donald Trump created a huge divide Friday when he declared at a rally in Alabama that the NFL should fire any players, referring to any such player as a “son of a b—-,” for kneeling during the national anthem in protest of racial inequality. There’s next to no chance the NFL will do that considering teams’ widespread support of the protests in Week 3, but a high school in Louisiana is trying to impose a rule forcing its athletes to stand.

The NFL is a private business, so there’s been plenty of debate over whether it would be legal for them to fire players over protests. However, Parkway High School is a public school, and it’s definitely illegal for them to enforce that rule.

A supreme court case in 1943, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, declared it unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments for government officials, which include public school employees, to make people stand for political displays, namely, the Pledge of Allegiance. It was brought up by Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose religion forbids them from saluting or pledging any non-religious symbol, but the case applies to anyone.

A similar situation happened at a Florida high school last year, and First Amendment lawyers warned the rule was unconstitutional before the school’s principal eventually backtracked.

Thumbnail photo via Shelley Mays/The Tennessean via USA TODAY Sports