Today’s (sigh) Contemporary Americana!
And yes, this was in so-called liberal Minnesota.
Three small-town eighth-graders in Minnesota were suspended by their principal for not standing Thursday morning for the Pledge of Allegiance, violating a district policy that the principal now says may soon be reworded to protect free speech rights.
“My son wasn’t being defiant against America,” said Kim Dahl, mother of one of the students, Brandt, who attends Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton Junior High School in northwestern Minnesota.
Brandt told the Forum newspaper in Fargo that Thursday’s one-day in-school suspension, “was kind of dumb because I didn’t do anything wrong. It should be the people’s choice.”
Kim Dahl said the “punishment didn’t fit the crime. If they wanted to know why he didn’t stand, they should’ve made him write a paper.” She said her son has been declining to stand all school year, offered no reason for sitting and was not obligated to explain his actions.
The school’s handbook says all students are required to stand but are not required to recite the pledge. The same is true for all four schools in the district, a school official said.
“These three [students] didn’t, and they got caught,” said Mel Olson, the district’s community education director. He said he backs the punishment, “being a veteran and a United States of America citizen, absolutely.” Olson served in the Marines in Japan during the Vietnam War.
The head of the Minnesota American Civil Liberties Union said that the school’s actions against the students are unconstitutional, and his office informed the district of that today in a strongly worded letter.
“The school can’t do that; that’s illegal,” said Chuck Samuelson, the civil liberties group’s executive director. “Wow.”
“but nobody paid much attention to the law anymore” - from Gattaca.
Of course if you look at the human material commenting after the story, there are many in the Land of the Free ™ who think these kids should probably be shot:
pledge your allegiance
everyone who lives in the u.s.a. should respect the pledge, all it is asking you to do is to pledge your allegiance to this country and if you live here, work here, go to school here you owe this country, if nothing else, your allegiance. there are too many terrorists ready to take down the freedom we enjoy so liberally that it is absurd that you wouldn’t pledge to remain loyal to the country you inhabit. i was always proud to stand and recite the pledge when i was in grade school and cannot for one instance believe that these kids care about the pledge at all, they are just lazy and don’t want to get off their butt to stand for 45 seconds. american children- the future obese adults who don’t believe in this country.
Protect our kids
These are our kids! How dare you tell them what they should do. They are in Junior high and should be in total control of their own lives with no intervention and no consequences. Let them do whatever they want. Do you think school is for learning things like respect and doing things they don’t think are fun???
Not necessarily illegal Edma
Just because some clown from the ACLU says its illegal, doesn’t make it illegal. The head of the ACLU doesn’t get to decide how case law is applied here and a 13 year old kid certainly doesn’t either. Besides, if they reword the rule to state that the kids are allowed to sit or stand, how will all the belly-aching liberals protest? They will have to lie down in order to break the rule, which is the position they usually take anyway.
1 response so far ↓
lynette // May 14, 2008 at 9:55 pm
oh the asshattery. it’s almost unbearable. the greatest patriotic duty any of us can perform is to dissent, to call for correction, to call to account those who would destroy this great nation by their actions, whether they are the official government of this country or not.
to remain silent under the guise of patriotism is cowardly and shameful. i salute these young patriots who refuse to stand to pledge allegiance to a country gone mad. i am loyal as hell to the idea of america, but this version, the one operating this very day under geroge w. bush is not the america i know and love. i would remain seated too.
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