Students can skip Pledge of Allegiance, school district says
Source: Associated Press
Updated 4:57 pm CST, Tuesday, February 19, 2019
WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) A Connecticut school district has acknowledged students have the right not to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance, as a result of a lawsuit by a teenage girl who says her teacher shamed her and other students for opting out.
The Waterbury Board of Education and teacher agreed to settle the federal lawsuit, which was dismissed Feb. 9 as a result of the deal. The girl's lawyer says officials agreed students don't have to take part in the pledge and will pay her legal fees, which weren't disclosed.
The unidentified 14-year-old black student at Waterbury Arts Magnet School sued in October, citing First Amendment rights. She said she and her classmates remained seated during the pledge to protest racial discrimination.
Messages were left with school officials and city lawyers Tuesday.
Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/education/article/Connecticut-city-schools-agree-pledge-isn-t-13628634.php
(Short article, no more at link.)
lancelyons
(988 posts)Its a allegiance to our country and I feel that all citizens should be committed to our country.
DonViejo
(60,536 posts)I would much rather allegiance be demonstrated by other ways, e.g., voting, feeding the hungry, etc., etc.
LongtimeAZDem
(4,494 posts)I'm against mandatory recitation, but the it is to the country.
Whiskeytide
(4,459 posts)... idea. Perhaps the words could be amended to incorporate a commitment to more civic duty and humanitarian acts.
Aristus
(66,092 posts)When I was in the Army, I took the enlistment oath once, and that was it. I didn't have to do it every single day. But my commitment didn't change.
Forcing young children to invoke the name of God when swearing an oath to the state every single day seems like the kind of thing we invade other countries for doing.
unblock
(51,974 posts)i said the pledge quite a number of times as a child (though i never said the "under god" part), until i realized i didn't have to and it made no sense to do it repeatedly.
when other students tried to get me to stand and say the pledge with them, i'd say, "i've said the pledge before. when i pledge, it's good forever. is your pledge only good for one day?"
that shut them right up. fortunately for me, other than a few instances of that sort of thing, i never really got hassled for refusing to stand or say the pledge in school.
BumRushDaShow
(127,300 posts)as part of a program for children during the ceremony that established "Columbus Day" (on its 400th anniversary).
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-man-who-wrote-the-pledge-of-allegiance-93907224/
Blues Heron
(5,898 posts)How many times do you have to re-pledge? It's not like the pledge wears off is it? Maybe a booster pledge every 10 years just in case of pledge-slippage.
scarytomcat
(1,706 posts)forcing people to say things is just wrong
The courts ruled in the 60's
Response to lancelyons (Reply #1)
Jake Stern This message was self-deleted by its author.
The Genealogist
(4,723 posts)I can certainly see why people don't want to pledge their allegiance to a piece of cloth that represents a country. Millions of people are treated as second class citizens, and I can see why they aren't so keen on it.
Judi Lynn
(160,217 posts)of people who simply had nowhere to go to get out of the road of murderers.
Couldn't do it by making friends, co-existing. Hell, no.
Prepare the way for the bloodbath by teaching everyone to view the original people as "savages" and demons, look down on them because they are different, because they don't speak our language. That makes them stupid, doesn't it? The survivors get so cranky after massacres.
Why so few actually feel it's "bad" to become aware of the history of this culture is one great ominous mystery to me. They make it virtuous to remain ignorant and pompous, to claim it's the native people's fault so many of them suffered wildly and died, or "lived" to mourn the loss of their beloveds, and their world.
UpInArms
(51,252 posts)+1
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)My daughter refuses to say it because of "under God." Since we are atheists, she objects to that.
I tell her I just omit that part when I recite it, but she is not satisfied by that (ah... the passion of youth), and I respect her right to do it, and I admire her willingness to perhaps subject herself to unpleasantness for something she believes in.
obamanut2012
(25,911 posts)Most people try to hide it.
lancelyons
(988 posts)I dont have a problem admitting that.
I was born in United States of America
I am a United States of America citizen
I have family members who died fighting for our country.
I believe that you should be for USA if you are a USA citizen.
I would be SHOCKED if other citizens cant say they are PRO USA and committed to USA
We do have citizens today that seem to be more committed to other countries like RUSSIA but that is not me.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)I have to say that compelling allegiance is different than earning allegiance.
Forcing someone to allege "I love you" is counter-intuitive to the concept of love. Allegiances, as well...
Merlot
(9,696 posts)Demsrule86
(68,348 posts)Dave Starsky
(5,914 posts)It never was. But, until recently, we always tried to be better. We had "more perfect union" baked into our Constitution. We aspired to that ideal. We all tried to make this country better.
But now I think that Vladimir Putin and the Russian trolls and bots are trying to tear our country apart. They design us to fight amongst ourselves.
scarytomcat
(1,706 posts)maybe we should stop cops from shooting unarmed people
but you are right the right doesn't even try
BlueIdaho
(13,582 posts)Also means not having to say something you dont want to say.
procon
(15,805 posts)What started out as "a patriotic program for school children to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbuss arrival in America, was written over 100 years ago by a bigoted man who lamented so many immigrants were coming to the US. "The nativism of the 1890s that birthed the Pledge of Allegiance is still with us today. At a time when the president of the United States demands restrictive immigration laws..."
The Pledge became an institutional poke at Russia and godless communism with the addition of under God tacked on in the 50s, as if a bit of fervor religious demonstrated our anti-communist policies.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/11/03/the-ugly-history-of-the-pledge-of-allegiance-and-why-it-matters/?utm_term=.8231c0101fc8
I'm proud to say that I opted out of the patriotic nonsense swirling around flags and pledges back in the sixties. This country is not defined by silly symbols that reflect someone else's definition of America. The only valid representation of what our country stands for is the Constitution.
McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)obamanut2012
(25,911 posts)SCOTUS declared it so decades ago, in the 40s.
MissMillie
(38,452 posts)they should not be forced or coerced to pledge allegiance to anything to be there.
Any student can stand outside the front of school--on their own time--and say the pledge if they so choose.
Same thing with prayers. Do it on your own time, or keep it to yourself.
Call it my version of personal responsibility.
dflprincess
(28,057 posts)in West Virginia State Board of Education v Barnette
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_State_Board_of_Education_v._Barnette
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment protects students from being forced to salute the American flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance in public school. The Court's 63 decision, delivered by Justice Robert H. Jackson, is remembered for its forceful defense of free speech and constitutional rights generally as being placed "beyond the reach of majorities and officials".
Barnette overruled a 1940 decision on the same issue, Minersville School District v. Gobitis, in which the Court stated that the proper recourse for dissent was to try to change the public school policy democratically. It was a significant court victory won by Jehovah's Witnesses, whose religion forbade them from saluting or pledging to symbols, including symbols of political institutions. However, the Court did not address the effect the compelled salutation and recital ruling had upon their particular religious beliefs but instead ruled that the state did not have the power to compel speech in that manner for anyone. In overruling Gobitis the Court primarily relied on the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment rather than the Free Exercise Clause.[1]
(This is the same citation I posted in the original thread about this a few days ago)
BlueIdaho
(13,582 posts)obamanut2012
(25,911 posts)Good grief.
I was in high school in the 80's, and most of us didn't stand for teh Pledge, or if we did, we didn't recite it, and this was in a decently red redneck area.
dameatball
(7,380 posts)Panich52
(5,829 posts)or early 60s when student sued on religious grounds. Has conservative efforts at revisionist history wiped memories as well as history books?
Baltimike
(4,125 posts)GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)Perhaps more time spent on math? Science? History?
I dunno... maybe education should be the priority?
lindysalsagal
(20,440 posts)Regardless of the details and the history, these are children and compelling them to say anything is immoral, if it's truly a "free country."
wishstar
(5,267 posts)I got sent to principals' office and then banned to sit in hallway every day during pledge until my school finally stopped forcing kids to recite pledge back in the late 1960's. My whole situation in jr. high started when a teacher punished me (and removed me from the "Honor Society" for leaning down to pick up a classmate's books that had fallen on floor instead of standing at attention during pledge. So it is a power and freedom of expression issue.
lindysalsagal
(20,440 posts)Small, frightened people bully children in a failed attempt to rectify their own shame and guilt. I'm so sorry.