This week, the Pennsylvania Senate unanimously passed a bill requiring all public and private school students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and/or sing “The Star Spangled Banner” every day. According to this bill, school administrators are required to notify in writing the parents of any student seen not participating in the pledge or anthem. Supporters of the bill think that it will help instill traditional patriotic values in children, as well as keep parents aware of their children’s behavior at school.
This new law is unconstitutional in the spirit, if not the letter of the law. In 1943, the Supreme Court ruled in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette that students cannot be forced to recite the pledge. While the new law does not allow schools to directly punish students, the underlying message of the bill is that refusing to say the Pledge is wrong, and that parents should mete out the punishment that the schools cannot.
Supporters point out that students who are decidedly opposed to saying the pledge can still decline with little more trouble than annoyance for their parents, who will receive frequent reports about their refusal, and extra work for teachers, who will be required to write and send these reports. This idea assumes, however, that all parents share their children’s views on patriotism and the Pledge of Allegiance. In reality, the bill constrains the personal expression of those dissenting students whose parents hold opposing beliefs.
Lawmakers and administrators are also well aware that the threat of parental notification is a terrifying prospect to many children, and under the new law they are using this fear to manipulate students into compliance with their ideas.
The parental notification aspect of this law slyly insinuates that it is the conscientious parent’s responsibility to instill traditional patriotic values in their children. Therefore, the law seems to say that parents who allow their children to hold a different opinion aren’t doing their job. A parent’s responsibility is to guide his or her child to making informed, independent decisions, not to force the child to hold any particular view. Simple indoctrination is no more a part of good parenting than it is of good schooling.
Pennsylvania should repeal this new law, as it flagrantly violates students’ rights to form and practice their own beliefs. American patriotism cannot be cultivated through manipulation and coercion. In fact, these methods are contradictory to the very ideals of liberty and justice that the Pledge of Allegiance purports to instill.
