Providing Opportunities To Form A Misunderstood And Insincere Patriotism

Members of the fifth grade, Chcremoya public school of Hollywood, pledge allegiance to the flag during the War Production Board’s presentation, “Three Thirds of the Nation” at Hollywood’s Radio City on May 27, 1942

I, an American citizen who is proud of his nation, confess that I have completely lost the vibe on the Pledge of Allegiance. Seeing an announcement like this from the Governor of North Dakota…

America is the land of opportunity. And students in every public school in North Dakota, along with elected governing bodies and those who attend their meetings, should have the opportunity to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and express support for the American ideals upon which our country was founded. To that end, our administration is creating a framework for legislation to guarantee that the opportunity exists to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, as other states have done. …

…I just rolled my eyes. I just don’t understand it. N.D. Governor Doug Burgum isn’t even up for re-election, so why the grandstanding? Why fetishize the Pledge now? What, politically, is being accomplished here? North Dakota is a deeply red state with a relatively small population. What is the goal line Burgum is hoping to move to ball towards? Being picked as Ron DeSantis’ running mate in twenty-two months? Maybe. But it seems like it’s really in reaction to this:

[Fargo School] Board vice president Seth Holden motioned to axe the pledge, saying it was inconsistent with the district’s “philosophy.” Holden said the pledge “violates board policy” because “there is text within the Pledge of Allegiance which is simply not true.” He argued during the Tuesday board meeting that because multiple religions are practiced within the United States, the country can’t be “one nation under God.” Holden also said it is an “indisputable fact” that “not all U.S. citizens have liberty and justice.” According to Holden, reciting the pledge violates district policy that “school board members should be honest.” ¶ … Holden also argued the phrase “under God” is “non-inclusionary,” as it only applies to Christian and Jewish students. He cited the district’s diversity, equity, and inclusion statement to support this argument.

N.b.: after some public criticism of this move, the Fargo School Board is reconsidering this decision on its own. But that said, not all of Holden’s arguments are wrong on their face, and that’s probably fuel for the fire powering the backlash. Perhaps it’s easier to venerate the symbol than to defend the thing symbolized, at least in this case.

On a policy level, there’s old-to-nearly-ancient Supreme Court jurisprudence to the effect that students cannot be forced to recite the Pledge. I presume that Burgum would aim at doing that if he thought he could. Even so, it may be possible that Burgum is trying to tee up a challenge to the Barnette decision and reverse that now eighty-year-old precedent in favor of a new way of interpreting the First Amendment. That’d not be an entirely insane hope, given recent SCOTUS activity in other policy arenas. But there doesn’t seem to be any real push in that direction that I’m aware of. Maybe that’s something that’s coming down the pike?

There may be confusion in some peoples’ minds–although there ought not–that somehow the Pledge has been banned in schools or that what the Fargo School Board did is somehow part of a trend to try to ban it. Maybe they heard this on some questionable news or opinion source.

But in fact, public school students are still punished in this day and age for not reciting the pledge. In 2017, a Houston, Texas are high school student refused to recite the Pledge or participate in an assignment revolving around writing an essay about the Pledge and a teacher-sponsored listening of Lee Greenwood’s song God Bless the U.S.A.. She got zero grade and later, a $90,000 civil settlement. In 2018: a different Houston-area teenager was expelled from school for her refusal to recite the Pledge of Allegiance; Texas AG Ken Paxton intervened to defend the expulsion. In 2019, a sixth-grader in Lakeland, Florida was punished for “disruptive activity” following his refusal to recite the Pledge of Allegiance after the teacher argued with him about why he chose not to recite it and told him to “go home” if he didn’t like the country; the student was arrested (although the charges were later dismissed). And in 2020, a Lebanon, Pennsylvania teenager was suspended from school for his refusal to recite Pledge of Allegiance, also inspiring civil rights litigation.

I could probably find more examples of this if I dug around for more than literally five seconds; these were the top four hits I got on a simple Google search before I hit a more general policy discussion and decided that was enough for this article’s purposes. The reality of what goes on daily in our public schools is the opposite of banning the Pledge: these are examples of schools requiring recital.

Maybe there is confusion about the Pledge and prayer in the schools; one suspects the Venn Diagram of people who think prayer should be part of public schools again is probably all but completely within the Venn Diagram of those who think the Pledge ought to be mandatory. Of course, prayer in public schools is not and has never been banned. Just ask the Federal government. What’s been banned since 1962 is mandatory, school-sanctioned prayers, and even this appears to be a weakening interpretation of the Establishment Clause since we learned at the end of this Term that instructor-led prayers that are effectively mandatory by being strongly encouraged are allowed, so long as they aren’t formally mandatory.

Which seems to be where Gov. Burgum wants the Pledge to be, too — it’s not like the pledge was banned in Fargo schools, it’s just that the teachers aren’t making any more special time for it to be “voluntarily” recited. That’s the position prayer holds now, to the objection of certain political types, of which I suspect Burgum is one, and certainly one of the groups whose support Burgum craves.

I could understand why people would think the Pledge of Allegiance is a kind of prayer. Now, with courtesy to my religious friends and readers, that last sentence isn’t meant to be understood as a good thing. This is what I learned about prayers and the Pledge as a child:

“Ready? Begin. [Chorus of third graders:] I Pledge Allegiance. To the Flag. Of the United States of America! And to the Republic. For which it stands. One nation. Under God. Indivisible. With Liberty And Justice For All.” [Third-grade Burt raises hand.] “Mrs. [CCD teacher]? What does “Allegiance” mean? “It means loyalty, Burt.” “Oh. Mrs. [CCD teacher]?” Another question, Burt?” “What’s a Republic?” “It’s a kind of government.” “You mean like the President?” “Burt, we have to move on to the lesson. See me after class.” “Am I in trouble?” “Just please sit down.”

Followed up roughly an hour later by:

“Hailmaryfullofgracethelordiswiththeeblessedartthouamongstwomenandblessedisthefruitofthywombjesus. [Sharp, quick breath.] Holymarymotherofgahdprayforussinnersnowandatthehourofourdeathamen.” [Next bead. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Say an “Our Father.” Go back to the start. Five cycles of that in order to get through most of the necklace. Plus some other stuff.]

Maybe your childhood experiences with these sorts of repetitive recitals rest more lightly upon your soul than they do with mine. For me, the lessons taught were: grownups for some strange reason want to hear you say a bunch of words that you neither understand nor mean, and if you ask questions about it, they will punish you by making you repeat more silly strings of words over and over and over again until your brain loses the capacity to think critically about the words you’re saying. Best, therefore, to simply learn the words and not think about what they mean or ask questions about whether or not they’re true, so as to minimize the amount of punishment you will need to endure. These are not good lessons to be teaching children, especially the particularly bright ones who ask questions.

Compelled allegiance is not allegiance at all. It is mere conformity and likely insincere conformity at that.

Mistaking a symbol of a thing for the thing itself is magical thinking, and magic ain’t real. The flag is not the same thing as the United States. It is a symbol of the United States. Demanding that people, particularly children, pledge loyalty to a flag is a simplistic, reductionist, and clumsy way to inspire patriotism. Better, far better, to offer free people reasons why a nation has earned your allegiance than to simply demand it. The nation exists to serve its people, not the other way around.

Now, as an adult, I can see much to be proud of in our national heritage and history. Perhaps the most powerful source of pride, for me, is that we have elevated our laws to be our ultimate sovereign, and inscribed our highest national ideals into our highest laws. (Those laws include the freedom to refrain from reciting pledges of loyalty which would be insincere if compelled.) And for the most part, most of our public officials and most of our people take those national ideals seriously.

I also can see, as an adult, that there have been many times when we have failed to live up to those ideals. But still I take heart and hope that even though we haven’t delivered liberty and justice for all, we are working towards improving our track record as our Founders swore to do. That’s reason enough for me to be proud of my country. Perhaps holding these two ideas at the same time is complex to the point of contradiction. I don’t think so, personally.

You don’t have to feel the way I do about this. It’s a free country, after all. Honoring your freedom and mine to disagree offers us a hint: the right result for either the Pledge or prayer in an institutional setting that must comply with the First Amendment is obviously the result that we’ve had for a long time: a public school shouldn’t oblige a student to recite, nor should it punish a student who chooses to recite on their own. That’s what it means for an institution to be neutral about something: when the institution neither encourages nor discourages it.

The real question is: is neutrality consistent with a teacher calling out a special time within the school day for students to “voluntarily” engage in a recital? After all, a teacher or other adult authority figure taking time out of the regular routine and other activities going on to “allow” students to “voluntarily” do something that the teacher also does isn’t a precisely free choice for the student even if failing to participate does not result in any sort of formal discipline. To me, that looks like encouragement, and is therefore not institutional neutrality.

Again, you are free to agree or disagree with that assessment. Particularly if you disagree, though, I encourage you to think intentionally and critically about the words of the Pledge sometime between now and the next time you’re asked to join in a public recital. What do the words of that oath, which you’ve sworn thousands of times over the course of your life, actually mean? What is it that you are now sworn to do? When you hear someone raise talk of a “national divorce” or of taking up violence to achieve a political objective, meditate for a while upon the word “indivisible,” which you’ve no doubt recited as part of this oath thousands of times in your life, and the degree to which you’ve actually sincerely undertaken that oath.

Meanwhile, let schoolkids recite, or not, as they choose. If you feel a patriotic duty to encourage children to pledge their loyalty to the nation, then do it by being an example of the kind of American who is dedicated to bringing liberty and justice to all.