Posted on 08/15/2003 4:07:04 PM PDT by DPB101
Calling it divisive and discriminatory, a federal judge blocked a Colorado law Friday that requires public school students and teachers to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
In issuing a temporary injunction, U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock said the law discriminates against teachers by allowing students to opt out with a note from their parents. Teachers have no such option.
The judge also said the law pits students who choose to say the pledge against those who do not, and students against teachers.
''What is instructional about that? Isn't that compelled speech? To mandate every day that one make this pledge whether you believe it or not?'' Babcock asked. ''You can't compel a citizen of the United States to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.''
The injunction will be in effect until a full hearing on the challenge. A date for that hearing was not set.
The pledge has long been part of the routine in many Colorado schools but it was not required for all 750,000 public school students from kindergarten to 12th grade until the law took effect Aug. 6.
The law was challenged less than a week later by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of nine teachers and students from four Denver-area districts.
Anne Rosenblatt, a 14-year-old freshman at Cherry Creek High School and one of those who challenged the law, said she has refused to say the pledge since January.
''I don't believe in pledging my allegiance to an inanimate object,'' she said after the ruling. Her father, Richard, said he respected her rights.
Rick Kaufman, a spokesman for Jefferson County schools, said the injunction would not stop school officials from saying the pledge daily. He said principals were advised even before the court case not to discipline anyone for refusing to say the pledge, regardless of their reasons.
''We do look forward to this litigation,'' Kaufman said. ''It will help clear up any further direction for school districts with respect to the mandate of the state law.''
State Senate President John Andrews, R-Centennial, said the ruling was an insult.
''This is a gross insult to the patriotism of most Coloradans. It's bad jurisprudence. I'm confident it will be overturned on appeal,'' he said.
ACLU attorney Allen Chen told the judge the law posed irreparable harm to the First Amendment rights of students and teachers.
''This is nothing less than ritualistic recitation of words that have much meaning to some people and no meaning to other people,'' he said.
State officials say anyone can choose not to say the pledge under certain circumstances. Assistant Deputy Attorney General Maurice Knaizer said the pledge requirement was just part of a state-mandated curriculum.
''I don't think there's any argument that the education of children is an important state objective,'' he told the judge.
Colorado is one of 33 states that require students to recite the pledge during the school day, according to the Education Commission of the States. Specific rules vary.
Last month, a federal court ruled a Pennsylvania law requiring all students to recite the pledge or sing the national anthem violated students' freedom of speech under the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court is expected to announce this fall whether it will consider another federal court ruling in San Francisco that said regular classroom recitations of the pledge are unconstitutional because of the phrase ''one nation, under God.'' That case began with a lawsuit by an atheist who sued the school district where his daughter was a second-grader.
Oh I agree with you on that. It was the note thing that just struck me, because kids are required to provide written proof that they have their parents permission to do so many other things. It was more of a random thought than a part of the discussion.
Judges enforce what the legislature passes. If the state legislature passes laws that encroach on our freedoms guanteed by the constitution, the federal judiciary should override those laws, if the state judiciary doesn't.
Theocracies? LOL
There is a segemnt of FR that has theocracy embalzoned on thie minds.
In my time here I have seen one theocrat and he was a libertarian Calvinist. Go figure.
Liberals can't get their agenda enacted into law at the voting booth so they run to the courts to rule us.
It has to stop. I'm opposed to government schools to begin with but I accept the fact that the majority of voters are not. A free society needs a certain amount of give and take. The left won't hear of that. They want to rule with an iron fist. I'm sick of it.
People must be able to work things out in a democratic process. We saw what happened after Roe V Wade. Positions became set in stone because there was no recourse to the ballot box. The country at the time was changing on abortion. Some states were easing up, some were not. A situation which pleased no one but a situation which didn't lead the acrimony we see today on the issue.
If the people of Colorado want the pledge, let them have it. The Feds need to butt out.
Hear hear. And the girl who started it had had the option to not participate...which according to her she started taking in January.
A list of all the plaintiffs is here.
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