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07-16-2003, 09:01 AM | #1 | |
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Judge Shoots Down Pa. Pledge/Anthem Law
As discussed in this thread, late last year the Pennsylvania legislature enacted a law mandating that both public and private schools begin each day with Pledge recitation or singing the national anthem. The law allowed students to refrain, but required parental notification in the event of a refusal.
Yesterday a federal district court judge held that the law violated the constitutional rights of parents, teachers and schools, all three classes of plaintiffs named in the lawsuit. From law.com: Quote:
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07-16-2003, 03:28 PM | #3 |
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I think texas just passed one of these boneheaded laws mandating the POA to be recited. The parent must send a note to excuse the child. Yea that's real inclusive activity down here.
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07-16-2003, 03:36 PM | #4 |
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Damn! I wasn't aware of this! I"m just glad my homeroom teacher wasn't either.
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07-17-2003, 07:48 AM | #5 |
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Just for the record, no child can legally be forced to say the Pledge. The Supreme Court has already ruled on this.
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07-17-2003, 10:28 PM | #6 | |
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Quote:
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07-18-2003, 06:59 AM | #7 |
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Forced Pledge recitation
That Supremes's decision was the *Gobitis* case of several decades back, ne?; in which the Court affirmed (I forget the vote number. Was it a 9?) that no public?school student can be required to salute the Flag (= to recite the Pledge). The case involved Jehovahs Witnesses, as so many First Amendment cases have done. Altho my recolllection is fuzzy (Yeh, Ill go home & look it up.), I'd assume (Never assume a goddamned thing!) that that (ultimate) decision wd apply to the Penna matter. Hence, why doesn't it apply?
Thanks again , Stephen, for quoting (never too often!) that great sentence of J. Jackson's about the "fixed star". |
07-18-2003, 07:05 AM | #8 |
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I think they were trying to get around it by saying students aren't required, but to be exempted they had to have permission from their parents.
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07-18-2003, 08:44 AM | #9 | |
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Re: Forced Pledge recitation
Quote:
Actually, Minersville Sch. Dist. v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940) upheld a mandatory flag salute statute. The Court overruled Gobitis three years later in West Virginia Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), the case from which that famous Jackson quote comes. Felix Frankfurter, who wrote the majority opinion in Gobitis, dissented in Barnette. Frankfurter thought that decisions regarding whether school districts can make kids say the Pledge and salute the flag on pain of expulsion were best left to state legislatures. What a testicle that guy was. As for why Barnette didn't apply directly to the Pennsylvania case, I think Godless Dave is right. The Pa. law didn't absolutely require participation in patriotic rituals. However, it did require schools to notify parents if their kids refused to recite the Pledge. The judge ruled that the notification provision was sufficiently coercive that the statute violated students' First Amendment rights. |
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07-21-2003, 06:40 AM | #10 |
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Grateful thanks (=Deller's tautology)
...to you, Sieur Stephen, for 'mending the fuzzy-facts potholes!
Oh, man: when Oi feel like getting down on my knees in gratitude & praise, I go & read the Supremes's decisions..... What have guys wrought; forsooth! Watching *human* embodied brains struggling for clarity is the holiest worship I know. |
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