Once again, a federal court in California has found the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools unconstitutional because the oath affirms that the United States is “under God.”
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton, ruling in Sacramento Sept. 14, said three Sacramento County school districts’ policies encouraging recitation of the pledge violate the First Amendment. In his opinion, Karlton wrote that the act of government officials — here, principals and teachers — leading students in reciting the words violates the children’s right to be “free from a coercive requirement to affirm God.”
The suit is similar to one that Michael Newdow, an atheist who has a child in one of the school districts, lost last year in the Supreme Court because Newdow, a noncustodial parent, lacked the proper legal standing to bring the suit. Therefore the high court never considered the constitutional merits raised by his case, which was Elk Grove Unified School District vs. Newdow.
Government coercion?
In the current case, Newdow vs. Congress of the United States, Newdow is joined by three unnamed atheist parents. They claim the school districts’ policies violate their right to raise their children free of government coercion to believe in a monotheistic God.
Karlton’s ruling came on a motion from the affected school districts — the Elk Grove district along with the Elverta Joint Elementary School District and the Rio Linda School District — to dismiss the case. In court papers, they cited the Supreme Court ruling, which reversed a 2002 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
But Karlton wrote that the high court never explicitly overturned the lower court’s finding that the districts’ policies violate the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion. Since the parents have standing to file the case, it may proceed, he said.
“Because this court is bound by the 9th Circuit’s holding … it follows that the school districts’ policies violate the establishment clause of the Constitution,” Karlton wrote. “Accordingly, upon a properly supported motion, the court must enter a restraining order” barring the schools from directing recitation of the pledge.
If the case is appealed to the 9th Circuit and that court agrees with Karlton, then public-school recitation of the pledge with the offending words will be illegal in the nine Western states over which that panel has jurisdiction.
The 9th Circuit’s original ruling on the pledge was wildly unpopular, leaving a wave of controversy in its wake. Many politicians — and not just conservative Republicans — denounced it. Conservative religious leaders have pointed to it as chief among the examples of “judicial activism” that they said are plaguing the nation’s courts. (ABP)
Share with others: