News has been making the rounds about a speech pathologist who lost her job for refusing to sign a pro-Israel pledge as a condition of employment at a public school in Texas.

This is quite an odd story to encounter regarding a government institution in the United States.

Loyalty oaths and forced pledges not to express certain political ideas are contrary to just about every understanding of basic American principles — especially free speech and liberty.

Indeed, in writing why even students should not be compelled to say the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States, Justice Robert H. Jackson eloquently explained, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by work or act their faith therein.”

Those words were as true when they were written in 1943 as they are in 2018 and apply just as well to positions on Israel as the pledge of allegiance.

This principle is directly assaulted by a Texas state law passed in 2017 designed to prevent government money from going to those who support protesting Israel by boycotting it or companies linked to it. (For comparison, such laws do not exist for swearing to not boycott U.S. businesses.)

This sort of legislation has received a good deal of push back but only recently have its implications become clear.

That’s where the case of Bahia Amawi, the speech pathologist in Texas comes in. Amawi, a U.S. citizen who is a contract employee with Pflugerville Independent School District, was asked to sign, as part of her yearly renewal paperwork, a pledge against boycotting Israel.

That pledge asks contractors to affirm that it “1. Does not currently boycott Israel; and 2. Will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract.”

Clearly that language, demanded by a governmental body, infringes on private political choices. Amawi, faced with the choice to give up those rights or lose her job, refused to sign and now has filed a lawsuit to protect her First Amendment rights.

The government, even state governments, can take positions on foreign policy issues — many local governments in the 1980s, for example, passed legislation refusing to give contracts to companies benefiting from apartheid in South Africa.

But those laws, which banned government actors from giving money to companies profiting from egregious human rights violations, are far different from laws banning protests — as the Texas law does.

Democracy flourishes on robust disagreements on the most important matters of policy. Shutting down those debates to fuel the economic interests of a foreign power, even a close ally, is unjustifiable and flies in the face of the very values the U.S. claims to uphold.

That’s especially true when the law is applied in such a way that it becomes a political litmus test for employment in schools or even, as it did in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, a requirement for receiving much-needed government aid.

Regardless of where you stand on controversial movements such as Boycott, Divest and Sanctions against Israel, laws that curb speech and mandate what Americans can and cannot buy must be opposed.

If lawmakers are so certain that support for Israel is fundamental to U.S. interests, they shouldn’t be worried about individuals saying (or protesting) against that position — after all, airing out bad ideas is a key role of free speech.