Student Sues Baltimore County Schools After Being Suspended For Asking Why Classrooms Didn’t Have American Flags

The irony in being suspended for exercising your right to free speech to ask about – the American flag…

A Maryland high school senior has filed a lawsuit after being hit with a 7-day suspension from school after questioning the Baltimore County Board of Education about why some classrooms at his school didn’t have an American flag.

It all started back on March 28 when Parker Jensen decided to go to the Board’s office to ask leadership about the missing flags.

According to both Baltimore County School Board policy and Maryland law, an American flag must be displayed in each classroom in the school district. But when the student noticed that some of his classrooms at Towson High didn’t have the flags flying, he decided to get the answer himself.

Jensen, who says he plans on joining the Marines after graduation, felt that displaying the flag was important, and he wanted to know why they weren’t in the classroom:

“I’m joining the Marine Corps, and patriotism has always been a big thing of mine.”

The student originally spoke to the school’s vice principal, who said that they would look into matter. But a month later, with nothing being done about it, he decided to go to the school board’s office after school.

Jensen documented the encounter, even making sure to point out on the video that the building was open to the public at the time that he was stopping by – complete with a “Welcome Visitors” sign on the front door. He was wearing his high school lacrosse shirt, and had his student ID with him. But instead of somebody coming out to talk to him, Baltimore County Public Schools called the police on Jensen for trespassing.

While he was talking to the police, Richard Muth from the Baltimore Public Schools Department of School Safety finally came out of building and informed Jensen that he was suspended from school and was to be removed from the property.

The reason given by the school board was “disruptive behavior,” and “refusing to cooperate with school rules,” and Jensen was ultimately suspended from school for seven days.

The teenager has since filed a lawsuit against the school district, alleging that the board violated his constitutional rights and asking that the suspension be vacated and any criminal charges be dropped, although at this point none have been filed.

The suspension isn’t expected to affect his enrollment in the Marine Corps (and I have a feeling if Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth found out the reason for the suspension he would personally make sure that Jensen was accepted into the military), but the student wants to make sure that the ridiculous punishment doesn’t come back to haunt him later on down the road, and hold the school board accountable for violating his rights.

And as it turns out, he ultimately succeeded in his mission of getting the American flags replaced in the classrooms, which Baltimore County Public Schools confirmed to local news station WBFF, though they refused to comment on his suspension:

“BCPS is unable to provide comment on specific student records or disciplinary action. Towson High School administration was already in the process of investigating and addressing the report of missing American flags prior to this individual’s visit to the Greenwood campus. As of April 1, flags have been installed in the classrooms that did not have them.”

It’s absolutely insane that he was suspended for trying to speak with somebody at the school board, regardless of what it was about. But the fact that his rights were violated over an American flag just makes the whole situation even more ironic and ridiculous.