A teacher who threw down an American flag and stomping on it in front of his class has been put on leave for the remainder of the year.

According to WIS TV,  Scott Compton, a high school English teacher in Chapin, South Carolina, is being accused of behaving in an unpatriotic and disrespectful manner while stomping on the flag as part of a demonstration in class.

Michael Copeland, the parent of one of the students who was in the classroom that day, overheard his daughter talking about it and pressed for more details.

She told him that Compton “drew a couple of symbols, like one of them was a cross, and he said, ‘What does this represent,’ and everybody said, ‘Christianity. Then he proceeds to take down the American flag, and said, ‘This is a symbol, but it’s only a piece of cloth. It doesn’t mean anything,’ and then he throws it down on the floor and then stomps on it, repeatedly.”

What was the point? His daughter said she didn’t know.

Apparently, Compton repeated the same lesson in three different classes that day.

“Our superintendent served in the military, I served in the military for 20 years, our flag is a symbol of our freedom, and so many people have fought and died for that liberty, and so we take this action very seriously,” said Mark Bounds, a spokesperson for Lexington-Richland 5 school district.

“There is a code of ethics for teachers that talks about professional conduct, and then we tell our teachers that their personal opinion is their personal opinion and shouldn’t be brought into the classroom, and so we caution them all the time,” said Bounds.

Compton’s attorney, Darryl D. Smalls, says his client meant no disrespect and was attempting to show his classes that America is an “inspirational idea” that is greater than the “material objects that represent it.”

Smalls claims that people are rushing to vilify his client based on only a portion of the story and that all the facts are not being made known.

“My client has had an exemplary twelve year teaching career and was only trying to create a forum for discussion using a powerful symbol with which all his students would be familiar.”

The school district has launched a full investigation into the matter and Compton’s students have been told that they will be taught by a replacement teacher for the remainder of the year.

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