FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – A North Carolina teacher who stomped on the American flag as part of a high school lesson on the First Amendment has been suspended as district officials investigate.

“I put it on the ground and I used my right foot and I took two steps on it, and immediately two kids get out of the room,” Massey Hill Classical High School teacher Lee Francis told WNCN.

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“It’s really disconcerting,” he told the Fayetteville Observer. “My question to everyone is who is entitled to freedom of speech? Does everyone have access to freedom of speech? It’s unfortunate that all this has happened.”

Francis was suspended with pay on Tuesday and is expected to meet with school officials on Thursday over a lesson on American History he delivered to students on Monday.

Students claim Francis initially asked them for a lighter or scissors but when nobody produced them he tossed Old Glory on the ground and trampled it with his feet. The lesson was supposedly centered on the Supreme Court case of Texas v. Johnson, which upheld flag desecration as protected free speech.

A parent of a Massey Hill student posted a picture of Francis standing on the flag that was forwarded by a friend, along with a description of the lesson, and the post instantly sparked a public backlash.

“I called the Principal Dr. Adams and asked her why he couldn’t have talked about it and not actually disrespect the flag like that and she completely stood up for him,” parent Sara Taylor posted to Facebook.

“A few students left the classroom and one took the flag with them and asked that it properly taken care of. With the County getting so much funding for our military kids at this school, I ask the question of mutual respect, nothing less, nothing more,” she wrote. “That flag might not mean anything to that teacher, but it means a lot to us and it means a lot to the families who had their service member come home to them in a casket with that flagged draped over it.”

Several other folks, including state senate candidate Dan Travieso, also pointed out that Cumberland County Schools educates students from nearby Fort Bragg and Pope Army Airfield.

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Traviesco and other contend the lesson was a “poor choice of judgement” and an affront to those who risk their lives for America’s freedoms.

Francis, who challenged state Rep. Elmer Floyd in the Democratic primary before dropping out of the race in December, previously called for a “revolution” in education to give educators more control over curriculum. He also supports universal healthcare, homeless rights, gay rights, and an increased minimum wage, the Observer reports.

Francis doesn’t think his flag stomping lesson disrespects military families and those who came home from foreign wars in caskets.

“Just because I step on the flag doesn’t mean I step on their graves,” Francis told WNCN. “It doesn’t mean I step on their bodies as they return from overseas. It means I step on a piece of fabric.”

The teacher said he was shocked by the public’s reaction to his antics.

“We have a level of students that are mature and are expected to be mature,” he said. “So no, that was not the reaction I was expecting.”

Regardless, locals think Francis’ lesson could have been much more respectful.

“I think it’s inappropriate to teach that in school,” Fayetteville resident Grayson Chavonne said. “If he wants to do that in his own home that’s his prerogative, but it doesn’t need to be taught to our kids.”

Cumberland County Schools Superintendent Frank Till seemed to come to the same conclusion in a prepared statement issued Tuesday.

“Clearly, there are other ways to teach First Amendment rights without desecrating the flag,” he said.

North Carolina law makes it a misdemeanor “to cast contempt upon any flag of the United states … by public acts of physical contact including, but not limited to, mutilation, defiling, defacing or trampling,” the Observer reports.

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina is defending Francis’ actions, nonetheless.

“One of the reasons our country is great is that the Constitution gives people the right to free speech and expression, no matter how much others may disagree or be uncomfortable with the message,” ACLU spokesman Mike Meno told the news site.

“And that is certainly a lesson worth teaching,” he said. “The very freedoms and principles that the American flag represents include the freedom to stomp on the flag.”