Hillary Clinton Backs 11-Year-Old for Kneeling During Pledge of Allegiance

Hillary Clinton gave an 11-year-old girl a pat on the back Wednesday after the girl made news for kneeling during the Pledge of Allegiance.

Clinton tweeted a NowThis report on Wednesday highlighting 11-year-old Mariana Taylor, a sixth-grader at a Maryland school who refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and decided to kneel instead.

“It takes courage to exercise your right to protest injustice, especially when you’re 11!  Keep up the good work Mariana,” Clinton tweeted.

Taylor, who said former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick inspired her, told the Washington Post in May that her teacher scolded her for kneeling during the pledge.

Eventually, her parents and the Maryland chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union got involved, but the school district said she was not disciplined for her actions.

“We know of no [Baltimore County Public Schools] student who has been reprimanded or punished for nonparticipation in patriotic observances,” the school said in a statement. “We fully support students’ rights and encourage student voice as articulated in board policy.”

The Post described Taylor, who attends Catonsville Middle School, as a “sixth-grader with strong beliefs about racial injustice, sexism, gay rights and President Trump’s proposed wall at the Mexico border.”

Clinton, in her tweet weighing in on the local school dispute, took the exact opposite stance of President Trump, who has publicly voiced his displeasure with football players like Kaepernick who choose to kneel during the national anthem.

“Great solidarity for our National Anthem and for our Country. Standing with locked arms is good, kneeling is not acceptable. Bad ratings!” Trump tweeted in September 2017.

Hillary Clinton commented in support of the NFL players who knelt during the national anthem out of protest in 2017 when she hit the speaking circuit to promote her book What Happened.

“And by the way, let’s be clear, those players aren’t protesting the national anthem or the flag, they’re protesting racism and injustice, and they have every right to do so,” she told the crowd at the University of California-Davis in October 2017.