College's Pledge Ban Exposes Need for SCOTUS to Address the Issue

College's Pledge Ban Exposes Need for SCOTUS to Address the Issue

(AgapePress) - A Christian law center is condemning a California college's ban on the Pledge of Allegiance. The move by the school's student leadership has prompted the legal group to call on the U.S. Supreme Court to make a final call on the constitutionality of the Pledge.

The student government of Orange Coast College (OCC) in Costa Mesa, CA, voted 3-1 last week to eliminate the recitation of the Pledge from its weekly meetings. According to a press statement from the Thomas More Law Center, Jason Bell -- one of the student board members and a self-proclaimed atheist -- declared the Pledge "irrelevant to the business of the student government" and that "nationalism is something that divides people."

Bell also reportedly referred to a 2002 ruling out of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on a possible "church-state conflict," a case that two years later was tossed out by the Supreme Court on a technicality. However, the main issue of that case -- specifically, the constitutionality of voluntary recitation of the Pledge -- has not yet been resolved. The case, Newdow v. Elk Grove Unified School District, was brought by atheist Michael Newdow, who has since filed a second lawsuit challenging the Pledge. That suit, like the first, has received a favorable ruling from the Ninth Circuit.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in 2004 that Elk Grove's policy on the Pledge did not constitute state creation of a religious establishment or government authority to an existing religion, nor did it expose anyone to the legal coercion associated with an established religion. "[T]he Pledge policy fully comports with the Constitution," he stated.

But Brian Rooney, director of communications for the Law Center, shares that apparently the OCC student government feels the Pledge is a violation of the Ninth Circuit's earlier ruling because "they ... had one admitted atheist say that he believed it was imposing upon him something that he did not believe in and therefore he shouldn't have to do it."

The attorney believes it is "outrageous" that students would not want to pledge their loyalty to the country that gives them freedom to speak their minds. "So our reaction was that we wanted to let the people know that we filed a friend of the court brief in the Ninth Circuit [in the second Newdow case] in the hopes that the Ninth Circuit would overturn their ruling," says Rooney. "If they don't, we'll do the same thing with the Supreme Court."

And if it advances to the Supreme Court as the first case did, the Law Center is hopeful the issue will be settled this time around. "Hopefully, this time the Supreme Court will decide the Pledge case on the merits in accordance with Justice Thomas' legal analysis so that 'separation of church and state' will no longer be a pretext for government anti-religious policies," says Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center.

Chances are that the second Newdow case will reach the high court, says the Law Center, which has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case.