A new North Carolina law requires students to say the pledge of allegiance, something absolutely forbidden by the Supreme Court in West Virginia Board of Education v Barnette. The school can request that students do so, they can have teachers lead the pledge, but they absolutely cannot force a student to say it. One of my fellow ScienceBloggers has a child in school there and had a teacher force him to recite the pledge. He's going to talk with the school principal about it today. This should get interesting.
Update: I just got word that he went to the principal this morning with a copy of the NC law, a copy of the Barnette ruling and a very well written letter of explanation. The principal was very sympathetic and said that she would speak with the teacher immediately and make sure that it never happens again. Thank goodness for good school administrators.
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Don't any of these state legislators consult with lawyers before passing laws? Heck, probably half of them ARE lawyers (or were)! Something like this you'd also think is common knowledge.
I think that the reporter in that article made a little syntactic error - as per this article (http://www.newsobserver.com/146/story/484343.html), the schools cannot require that the students even stand up during the pledge. The law is just that schools have to schedule time for the pledge.
Brian wrote:
The law is a bit muddled on this. On the one hand, it says the school shall require it, but then it adds a statement that it can't "compel" a student to recite it. Here's the relevant text:
And of course, in the real world, teachers will still compel the kids to do it and find ways to punish them if they don't. And if the teachers don't, the kids will. It can be damned intimidating for a kid to stand up for themselves in a situation like this.
I have to disagree, Ed. I spent two years as a regular sub here in NC, and didn't see any compulsion from other teachers or administrators.
In the Asheville City and Buncombe County systems, every classroom has a TV on which a brief "morning show" plays out. At lower levels, this is run by the principal or library staff; in middle and high school, it is normally produced by students. This show will include any general information needed, such as schedule changes, sports information, some type of brief civics lesson ("the character trait of the month is...Trust") and the Pledge.
The pattern for what happens then is essentially determined by grade level. Elementary students all stand, salute, and rather mindlessly recite it. Middle school kids are quiet and respectful for a moment, but seldom bother to recite the words. High schoolers pay no attention whatsoever.
Teachers don't need to compel elementary students. since they have little idead what they're doing and everyone is trained to do things in unison anyway. Older kids are not compelled in any way. So I think this is less of a story that it might seem. We're not exactly mandating the Hitler Youth.
llDayo, you'd be surprized how many state legislators are not in the legal profession. And despite there being Legislative Counsel offices, most of them don't much seem to care about Constitutional niceties. A pity, but true.
I find this a little more worrying than do most of your commenters, because I am seeing a pattern here, with this, the South Dakota abortion law, Judge Roy Moore, Indian River -- the Delaware county that began requiring school prayer and wound up creating an atmosphere that drove away the Jewish family. It is as if states and religious groups are either
a: treating Supreme Court decisions on separation and religious matters as irrelevant,
b: trying to force the Supreme Court to take cases and that way to overrule their past decisions, maybe trusting the radical 4 can pick up one vote on these case,
c: attempting to bankrupt or wear out groups like the ACLU by making them fight cases in many different jurisdictions at once
or d: simply engaging in a massive campaign of civil disobedience.
Sadly, in some these areas they are taking their cue from a President who has declared that laws and treaties he disagrees with have no effect.
I know if I were elected to represent a group of citizens, for every law that was passed into my hands to review, I'd want to make sure it adheres to the Constitution. But that's just me. So much money and arguing could be saved if the legislators would do what they were elected to do, eg. serve the people. They seem so focused on their own "agenda" that they either forget or just don't care about the ones who got them there. I think Jim Benton above got it right as to what their true motives are, to get them into judicial review in an attempt to have them deemed acceptable.
I loathe the "well, it's just not ever compulsory since I saw it happen a few times and nobody objected" argument. Coupled with the "and it's not as bad as the Nazi's, so it's really trivial" argument also sets me off. There is no good reason to mandate a time for loyalty oaths which require those who don't like loyalty oaths to make themselves publicly known (and thus available for pressure.) You convince me why I shouldn't be in opposition to this unAmerican piece of legislation -- and "it's not that bad" doesn't cut it. Putting the weight of civil authority behind something requires a positive justification.
Actually, Craig P, my argument was not, "It's not that bad," but rather, all the new statute mandates is something schools were already doing and kids weren't paying attention. So, yeah, big deal.
{blockquote>[M]y argument was not, "It's not that bad," but rather, all the new statute mandates is something schools were already doing and kids weren't paying attention. So, yeah, big deal.
It is in fact a big deal when the state mandates something, regardless of whether or not it is already done and/or occasionally ignored. In this particular case, the state has zero business mandating a set aside for a loyalty oath. And I can speak from personal experience (having played football in Texas public schools) that the fact that there exist places where a common practice (such as coach's pre-game prayer in Jesus's name) is ignored by some, is certainly not an indicator that there aren't plenty of places where non-participants are completely ostricised. Civil authority has zero business pulling crap like this. And people are perfectly justified in calling bullshit.