Moses Hinton, a 7th grader in the gifted program at Plaza Middle School in Virgina Beach, Va., received an in-school suspension after a teacher claimed he wiped his hands on the American flag.

However, Moses told his mother, Victoria Hinton, that he had simply lost his balance and grabbed the flag to catch himself.

Still Moses was disciplined.

“[This has been] very traumatic,” Victoria Hinton, the boy’s mother, told WTKR-TV. “It has had an emotional impact on my son’s education.”

Hinton also spoke with WAVY-TV, telling the station she believed the teacher overreacted in handling the situation.

“Why didn’t you just take him aside and first ask him, ‘Hey, is everything okay?”’Hinton told the station. “And then proceed by saying, ‘well, you know, the American flag is something we respect and we hold very high in our country, so you know, just keep that in mind.'”

Read more at the Huffington Post.

Although the school principal is black, the Hinton family believes that the discipline was racially motivated. In their defense, the harsher treatment of black students is well documented.

Does Ms. Hinton have a point? Was Moses unfairly punished?

Is this a non-story?

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