One weirdly neglected wrinkle in this whole story is that, by all accounts, the adult parent who was taking the photograph was the one who told them to give the salute. At a moral level that’s not wholly exculpatory, and all credit to the kids who refused to go along...
That said, even if you’re OK with the school punishing off-campus conduct, the parent giving the instruction seems a lot more culpable than the kids who lacked the presence of mind to recognize its significance & immediately realize they should disobey.
Right, of course it isn’t. But if you’re talking about the five seconds between the instruction and the photo, it doesn’t seem crazy that some of the kids reflexively went along before they’d processed what they were doing.
