Posted by Eugene Volokh: Pledge of Allegiance story: A tangentially related phone call from a reporter reminded me of this story that a law professor I know and trust told a while back.
It seems that a visiting colleague's students were going to a public school in Texas, and declined to say the Pledge of Allegiance. The teacher insisted that they say it, which of course violates Barnette v. West Va. Bd. of Ed., the 1943 case that held students had a First Amendment right not to recite the Pledge. Fortunately, the school backed down after getting a letter from the father. The letter gave an explanation for the children's behavior, though it didn't have to (and though as a legal matter, there should have been no need for the letter). The explanation was that the visiting colleague, and his children, were visiting from a foreign country, and they were citizens of that country, not the United States. They thus don't owe allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, or the Republic for which it stands, wonderful as it may be. (Technical footnote: In a purely legal sense, noncitizen residents of the U.S. owe the nation a duty not to aid its enemies in time of war -- noncitizens can thus be convicted of treason -- which is sometimes called a sort of "allegiance," but this is not, I think, the solemn allegiance to the flag that the Pledge contemplates.) Apparently the teacher not only didn't know or think about the students' First Amendment rights. The teacher also didn't think about what exactly the Pledge means, and why some students have an entirely simple and prosaic reason -- entirely unrelated to high constitutional debates about dissent and conscientious objection -- not to express that meaning. _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://highsorcery.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
