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The New York Post reported on Sunday that an eleven-year-old boy had been arrested on February 4th for not standing while the Pledge of Allegiance was recited in his Florida classroom. He had allegedly told the teacher that “the flag is racist, and the national anthem is offensive to black people”.

According to the local Bay News 9 report, the minor was charged with disrupting a school function and resisting arrest without violence, as well as being suspended from school for three days.

The incident happened when a substitute teacher had ordered the boy to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

The student told the Cuban immigrant teacher that he believed the pledge and anthem to be racist. The teacher was said to answer, “why if it was so bad here he did not go to another place to live?”. The teacher called the school office “because I did not want to continue dealing with him”.

It was reported that the student had allegedly attacked the teacher and called school administrators racist and threatened to get the principal and resource officer arrested. The student has denied the allegations.

Dhakira Talbot, the mother of the student, said arresting her son was taking things too far. “If any disciplinary action should’ve been taken, it should’ve been with the school. He shouldn’t have been arrested,” she said.

Polk County Public School spokesperson Kyle Kennedy maintained that he minor was not arrested for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, telling the Ledger, “Students are not required to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance.”

The spokesperson said that the eleven-year-old was in fact arrested for his disruptive behavior and refusing to follow the directives of school staff and law enforcement.

Kennedy said, “Our HR department will contact Kelly Services, which provides our substitutes, to further refine how our substitutes are trained,” after stating that the substitute teacher would no longer be working in the Polk County.