Policy change brings school system in compliance with state law and U.S. Constitution
Under pressure from the ACLU of Virginia--and based on recommendations from its own lawyers--the Spotsylvania County School Board last night voted to remove a policy requiring students to stand during recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance.
In a letter and legal memo sent last week, the ACLU warned school board members that students have a constitutional right both not to say the Pledge and to refuse to stand during recitations. Supervisors gave initial approval to change the policy in December, but were required to confirm that vote at its January 10 meeting in order for policy to take effect.
The matter came to a head recently when a student at Ni River Middle School was told he must stand for the Pledge or be in violation of a 2002 policy requiring all Spotsylvania students to stand and place their right hand over their hearts during the daily recitation of the Pledge.
Although the Spotsylvania policy did not oblige students to recite the Pledge, its requirement that students’ stand violated the First Amendment right to free speech and state law. The Virginia law, passed in 2002, evolved from a bill introduced by Senator Warren E. Barry that originally required students to stand and recite the Pledge unless they could articulate a religious objection and provide proof of their religious beliefs.
But by the end of the 2002 session, after both the ACLU and the Attorney General’s office expressed opposition to the bill, legislators had approved a law that instituted mandatory daily recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance in all Virginia public schools, but explicitly affirmed the right of students to refuse to say the Pledge or to stand for it.
“Not standing for the Pledge won’t win any school popularity contests,” said ACLU of Virginia executive director Kent Willis, “but the same constitutional principle that protects this kind of expression also protects your right to possess and espouse the religious and political beliefs of your choice. I don’t think anyone wants to change that.”
“The right to refuse to stand for or recite the Pledge is about as fundamental as it gets in a free society,” added Willis. “Free speech not only means that the government can’t suppress your beliefs, but also that it cannot compel you to profess a belief you do not have.”
Willis’s letter to members of the Spotsylvania School Board can be found online at: http://acluva.org/wp-content/uploads/2005/01/20050107SpotsylvaniaPledge.pdf
A legal memo from ACLU of Virginia legal director Rebecca Glenberg is available by contacting the ACLU of Virginia.
Contact: Kent Willis, Executive Director, ACLU of Virginia, 804-644-8022
