Kenny Hess, a student at Spanaway Lake High School in Tacoma, Washington, has been barred from producing any more videos in his broadcasting class. He failed to recite the phrase “under God” during the school’s Pledge of Allegiance, which is seen by all students and faculty on classroom TV.
He has been restricted to reading books during his broadcasting class, rather than learning broadcasting, for the rest of his high-school career.
Of course, he’s a senior, and it’s April, so that’s not too long 🙂
State law in Washington is aligned with judicial review in the 1945 case where the Court ruled that no person can be required to say the Pledge. In that case, pledge recitation took a back seat to freedom of religion, because Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot pledge fealty to any nation. School administrators suggest the 18-year-old should have written an editorial or prepared a televised opinion piece, rather than disrupt recitation of the pledge in its current form throughout the school.
“Our interpretation as a school district is that the law says we say the pledge,” said Greg Eisnaugle, Spanaway Lake principal. “‘Under God’ is still in it. If the court says it comes out, that’s what we’ll do.”
What do you think? Did the school administrators do the right thing? Did Kenny do the right thing?
(Side note: if Kenny’s an atheist, would he dislike the traditional epithet used in South Park when Kenny dies in each episode?)
My thoughts: Although I sympathize with Kenny, at the moment the law and school policy are not on his side. Acts of in-school civil disobedience are extremely disruptive, and I think, the wrong forum for them. He’s entitled to vote (since he’s 18), and it will be his responsibility to vote for candidates sympathetic to his cause. He’s also old enough to bring suit against the school district over the issue if he chooses, and were he younger, his parents could bring suit on his behalf.
On the other hand, he’s already apologized and agreed not to perform a similar stunt in the future. Prohibiting him from participation in his class for the rest of the semester seems an unusually harsh punishment. I’d think a day of in-school suspension would suffice.
Love and Logic
Matt and I are trying to deal with our children through love and logic. This means the consequence fits the crime. I feel that banning a student from class participation is ridiculous. That doesn’t teach him anything. I haven’t thought through it enough to have a natural consequence for not repeating the pledge, and thankfully I don’t have to deal the punishment. Hopefully, failing one class due to a restriction of participating won’t threaten his graduating from school.
I do feel that our freedom of speech should apply to whether or not we choose to repeat the pledge and/or leave out certain words. That just seems to make sense. —
Christy
Failed to elaborate…
One thing I think I failed to elaborate on was that he was leading the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance for his school when he omitted the phrase.
I think the natural consequence there would be that the school would refuse to allow him to lead the recitation of the Pledge.
I was the “morning announcer” in my high school, and I remember leading the Pledge numerous times We’d sometimes have “guests” (principal, vice-principal, whoever) stand-in and lead the recitation rather than one of the announcers, but on Monday morning, it usually fell to one of us.
I’m thinking it through: had I left out the phrase from the Pledge, I think it’s likely that I may have lost my “job” as morning announcer. Likely to the point of almost certainty 🙂 However, at Quince Orchard, this was an “extracurricular” activity; I received no special reward except a blurb in my high-school yearbook saying “M is for Matthew”, with remarks about my over-enthusiasm for mundane announcements.
Apparently, they do things a little differently at this high school. Keeping him from leading the pledge due to his indiscretion is likely an appropriate punishment; I wonder how much (if at all) the emotions of the administrators factored into his complete barring from participation in Broadcasting class?
—
Matthew P. Barnson
You don’t have all of the inf
You don’t have all of the information. He isn’t failing. He has the opportunity to earn credit through alternative projects. It’s not an issue of personal rights, it’s about declaring his point of view on the school broadcast system in violation of classroom and district rules. He didn’t just not say the words, but he removed them from the scrolling written text as well. He’s had many a chance to voice his opinions on the news through editorial pieces as well as in the school newspaper. He chose not to. Being there, I feel like the entire situation is getting blown out of proportion.
Oh for pete’s sake
What I want to know is this — why is it that Christians are so insecure about their faith that they feel the need to have a federally-mandated profession of it? Whatever happened to the personal, private expression of religion?
Because that’s what the whole Pledge of Allegiance argument is about, as well as the Roy Moore Ten Commandments debate. Some Christians feel that they should have the right to publicly profess their faith in a corporate fashion whenever and wherever they feel like it, and regardless of the faiths (or lack thereof) of whoever happens to be there. Why is it not enough to say grace before meals, or prayers before bed? Religion is about your *personal* relationship with God, not whether you can coerse everyone in your school to pray at the same time.
Argh.
— Ben Schuman Mad, Mad Tenor
good point.
Funny, I was just arguing the other side of this.
This point I agree with. As a Christian, and one that even tries to be evangelical at times, I wonder who we are convincing by making this an issue.
I regret that any church has become involved in this.
Presbyterian Minister on the topic…
Though not directly related to this young man’s story, a Presbyterian Minister lays out the case very well for Christians to be unopposed to removal of “Under God” from the Pledge. I also read a few days ago (though I lack the link), that several hundred rabbis and ministers recently signed an amicus brief to the High Court. The brief asked the Supremes to rule in favor of Newdow in the case.
Their reasoning?
That the only plausible reason the government could use to excuse the phrase in the Pledge was that “Under God” was devoid of religious significance. And to rotely use the name of Deity in a context devoid of religious significance is to break an important commandment:
Interesting stuff.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
An amazing point.
Matt, where was this in the first discussion? (MPB edit: [The Pledge: Et Tu, Supremes?])
This is a point I gave only lip service to.
It takes care of two goals: 1)It allows entrencehed political leaders to extricate themselves from the situation
and
2) It really is true. Even I, who believe, never considered it a prayer.. it was never meant to honor God for me.. and that is against the bible. Good thourough point.
Kennyhess
this is kenny hess and i agree that the punishment is completely to harsh. as matthew said i should bring suit against the school on monday when we return to school from spring break my lawyer will be speaking to mr eisnaugle and informing him of the suit when later details arouse i will be back to post them if anyone has a question for me they can email me at kennyhess85@yahoo.com