A public high school student's refusal to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance got her booted from class in Hamilton County until a lawyer explained that her actions are religious.
Eighteen-year-old Tyner Academy senior Quinesha Garrett was removed this week from daytime classes and ordered to night school, where the pledge is not recited.
After meeting with her lawyer, school administrators reversed themselves and a school district spokeswoman said Garrett was being allowed to return to daytime classes Wednesday.
Garrett told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that she is a devout Christian and believes she should not pledge her allegiance to anyone but God.
Clark said that once school administrators became aware of Garrett's reason, "they nullified the transfer."
Administrators declined comment.
In a rare display of backbone, a student was transferred to night school when she refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, but then administrators backed down after talking to her lawyer.
There was an active discussion of this issue on reddit:
http://reddit.com/info/6gu5n/comments/I was the only one who supported the decision to transfer her to night school.
I just didn't agree that this student was entitled to receive an education from the state while at the same time snubbing her nose at the government. Her education is not an entitlement, it is a government benefit. And one person can be said to be equally entitled to another, in the "if they're getting that then I should get that" kind of way, but not just entitled to an education like we're entitled to breathe the air. It's a cost that the government spends taxes on to:
1) serve the taxpayers' interest in educating the next crop of citizens who will have the skills to make the country strong
and
2) have the basic foundation and knowledge of civics to be participants in our form of representative government.
Contempt for the government kind of rules out them running for city council, for example. And their contribution to the political process will be a drain. Should a student refuse to go along with the program of becoming the type of individual that the taxpayers are paying for, then I think that the school administrators should have discretion to kick that student out. I'm not saying we should all bow our heads like slaves to our government, mind you. Only that we should be loyal to the Republic and to the principles of liberty and justice. There's no good reason not to, because under the Constitution, if we have a bad administration, then there is a political process to replace it with a good one. The pledge is "to the Republic for which [the flag] stands", not to any particular unpopular politician.
Honestly, as a taxpayer, if some high school student tells me he or she does not support the government and believes it should be overthrown and replaced by some other form of government (straight Democracy, Socialist Dictatorship, Communism, Totalitarianism) then I ask myself why I should be on the hook to spend a dime in government benefits for someone who just wants to use the fruit of those labors to take away the government that preserves my liberty?
The Constitution didn't address this Pledge issue explicitly, but the Framers did make their feelings abundantly clear. Does the Constitution say we should give convicted traitors a comfy chair and a copy of Spin Magazine? No! It says to execute them by hanging, no exceptions. What did the Framers have to say about the idea of the social contract? James Madison said that he didn't like the term "social contract" and preferred "social compact." Specifically, he preferred the understanding that this wasn't something each person could choose whether to sign. It was a compact that people become subject to simply by being within the territory controlled by the government. i.e. You are standing in St. Petersburg, therefore you are a de facto slave. You are standing in Washington D.C., therefore you are free, but have a citizen's responsibilities and obligations. etc.