Education

Pledging a battle for the Pledge

The federal court ruling that killed the Pledge of Allegiance in western U.S. classrooms spawned a stack of pledges from Washington: a pledge from the White House to fight the ruling; a pledge from lawmakers to propose a constitutional amendment; a pledge from one Democratic senator to punish the "atheist lawyer" who penned the ruling. The decision of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would bar public-school teachers this fall in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington state from leading students in the Pledge of Allegiance. In a symbol of defiance of the court, indignant lawmakers marched to the front of the Capitol and recited the Pledge; the Senate approved 99-0 a resolution condemning the court. Democrats and Republicans seemed to compete for most-colorful soundbite—"just nuts," said Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle; "our Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves," said Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.). Meanwhile, President Bush's judicial nominees—45 of them—are spinning their wheels in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Republicans hoped the case would showcase the problem of a politicized court and pressure the Democrats to act on the nominations (see p. 16). House Speaker Dennis Hastert said, "It's time for the Senate to move forward and confirm some common-sense jurists." Senate Republican leader Trent Lott emphasized that the Pledge battle "highlights what the fight over federal judges is all about." It also highlights the unsettled state of religious-freedom rulings in the federal court system. The anti-Pledge judges cited as a foundation for their ruling a Supreme Court decision restricting graduation prayers. "This is the Supreme Court reaping what it sowed," said Christopher Landau, a former law clerk to conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, a dissenter in the graduation-prayer case, in The Washington Post. The Pledge case originates with atheist Michael Newdow, a lawyer and emergency-room doctor in Sacramento, who sued the Florence Markofer Elementary School on behalf of his 2nd-grade daughter, who he said did not want to hear the pledge recited (recital is strictly voluntary, per an earlier Supreme Court ruling). Parent Kathleen Doncaster, whose daughter also attends the school, thinks Dr. Newdow has too much time on his hands: "He needs to get a hobby." Evidently, filing nuisance lawsuits is his hobby. In 1997, the California man filed a case in Florida seeking to strike the words in God we trust from U.S. currency. Dr. Newdow's victory last week may be money in the bank. The dissenting judge in the 9th Circuit case, Ferdinand F. Fernandez, said that if the decision were to stand, "'God Bless America' and 'America the Beautiful' will be gone for sure, and ... currency beware!"