# Pennsylvania requiring PRIVATE schools to recite the Pledge of Allegiance? WTF?! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 18, 2002, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380 "2002-11-18T21:01:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/21 "2002-11-19T20:45:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MEBuckner \* > Actually the 1940 _Gobitis_ decision referred to above _upheld_ the decision to expel from the public schools children who refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. However, three years later–by which point the United States was engaged in a world war–the court reversed that decision, in [_West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette_](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=319&invol=624), which I always enjoy quoting lengthy passages of: > > – snip – > > If school boards and state legislatures really want to teach students to love their country, _I_ say having them study the _Barnette_ decision will do a lot more than having them recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I sit corrected. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/22 "2002-11-20T11:00:26Z")
FWIW, the legislation passed by the PA Senate has no apparent conflict with the _Barnette_ decision, as it allows students to opt out of **reciting** the Pledge for reasons of religious or philosophical belief. What the bill does is to require that schools **lead** students in reciting the Pledge. They can quite legitimately require this of public schools, assuming the deletion of the “under God” passage. It’s their supposed authority to require _nonpublic_ schools to lead such recitations that I doubt the existence of. ---
**Author:** ![Cessandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cessandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cessandra)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/23 "2002-11-20T15:14:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Apos \* > **My question is… or else what? Public schools may have to follow orders, but to get private schools to fall in line, what are they going to do? What are the threats? On pain of revoking their liscences?** I don’t know about private schools, but for homeschoolers (who may or may not be included in this bill, but I bet they are) failure to comply with state-mandated standards such as this would result in criminal truancy charges against the parents. If you don’t run your homeschool the way the state says you should, it is not a legal school and your children are truant. Pennsylvania has some fairly strict homeschooling laws, so I would fully expect their regulation of private schools to be at least as severe. It’s like certain state legislatures don’t understand that the whole point of not going to public school is to do things _differently_ than public schools do them. I mean, what if the entire student body opts out of the pledge for religious reasons (say the school is sponsored by the Jehovah’s Witnesses), what is the point of even leading the pledge? And doesn’t the very forced endorsement of the pledge by the administration violate the school’s right to freely teach their religion to their children? Should teachers be forced to contradict themselves in first leading the class in the Pledge, and then teaching the children not to recite it themselves? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2002, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380/24 "2002-11-20T17:12:36Z")
The horrible mnemonic that I use to keep those two decisions straight is that in the first one, the Supremes were saying, “You think you’ve got a right to refuse to say the Pledge on religious grounds? Go bite us!!” 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pennsylvania-requiring-private-schools-to-recite-the-pledge-of-allegiance-wtf/137380.md?page=1)