Pledge of Allegiance still an issue

Tiny voices echo through the halls as the elementary students file into their morning classrooms. They have sharpened their pencils and put their knapsacks away. Teachers instruct them to prepare for morning announcements, which are broadcast on a schoolwide television program.\nAt 9 a.m. a television set in the general office flicks on. Two students and assistant principal Jim Morrison appear on the screen and give a weather report for the day. An image of the American flag appears and is enlarged until all 50 stars and 13 stripes fill the screen. \n"Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance," says one of the students. \nThe 470 students at Highland Park Elementary School in Bloomington follow this routine each morning and recite the Pledge of Allegiance before classes commence. \nMorrison said among parents, there is blanket support for the pledge, but he emphasized that if parents or children had strong objections to it, the pledge can be optional.\nThe U.S. Supreme Court decided Oct. 14 it would rule on the constitutionality of requiring students to recite the pledge in public schools across the country. \nThis decision resulted after an atheist father, Michael Newdow, objected to his 5-year-old daughter having to listen to the pledge each morning at her public elementary school in southern California. Both Newdow and the Elk Grove Unified School District have appealed to the Supreme Court, but because his guardianship of the 5-year-old has been questioned, the court will only hear the school district's appeal. \nThere are many people like Newdow who view the phrase "one nation under God" as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. At some elementary schools in Bloomington, the pledge is recited by students, while at others it is not.\nLaw professor Daniel O. Conkle, who specializes in First Amendment issues, said even if a student is not required to recite the pledge, there may be subtle pressure to participate, including peer pressure.\nThe Establishment Clause can be violated even without direct religious references being made in public schools. Conkle noted that the Supreme Court might decide the pledge is merely a statement of patriotism regardless of its reference to God.\nThe Pledge of Allegiance was adopted in 1942, and originally lacked the controversial phrase "one nation under God." It was inserted in 1954 by the U.S. Congress when the government decided it needed a way to distinguish the United States from communist and atheist countries. \nAt Arlington Heights Elementary School in Bloomington, there is no designated time for the pledge. Principal Linda Black said there are students who are Jehovah's Witnesses as well as atheists, whose families simply do not say the pledge. \n"At our school we respect the community at large," Black said. "We embrace lots of cultures and beliefs." \nShe also noted that not requiring classes to begin with the pledge each morning allows teachers more academic freedom.\nHeather Rhodes, a third grade teacher at Highland Park Elementary School, said she does not see the pledge as a religious oath. For Rhodes, it is important that her students recite the pledge out of respect for the soldiers fighting overseas, she said. \nLast year, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction in Indiana, ruled it is constitutional for students in public schools to be required to say the Pledge of Allegiance. The pledge has been supported by a close neighbor to Indiana.\nIn a document addressed to the members of the Illinois Senate and 92nd General Assembly, Gov. George H. Ryan wrote that the pledge is important because it is a "voluntary act of patriotism" and reminds students what the United States was founded upon. Students who do not want to participate in reciting the pledge cannot be forced to against their will.\nSandy Ducey, a mother of two children who have both attended Bloomington schools, said she has mixed feelings on this issue. \nDucey said her daughter Meagan, a Girl Scout, used to have to say the pledge before each Brownie meeting. This made Ducey uncomfortable, especially with the reference to God.\nDucey also has a 9-year-old son, Nathan, who currently attends Childs Elementary School. She said she now has no objections to him reciting the pledge.\n"Now I have a different view," Ducey said. "I don't have a problem with the pledge. I don't think of God as the Judeo-Christian God, as a man in the sky with curly white hair. I define God as an energy and life force. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and when you think about that as God then the pledge is great."\nThe Supreme Court plans to make its ruling by the end of next year.\nAsst. Principal Morrison said, "Frankly, if it loses the two words 'under God' and goes back to the original pledge, it will still be the pledge."\n-- Contact staff writer Lindsay Lyon at lrlyon@indiana.edu.