During each Morning Show broadcast, students are directed in the Pledge of Allegiance, where they’re expected to stand facing the flag with their hands over their hearts. Schools in America have featured some variation on this tradition since 1892 when American minister Francis Bellamy originally wrote the Pledge:
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
According to The Hill, 47 states have laws on the books that require some form of the Pledge in school. In Minnesota, Flag Statute 121A.11 requires that schools recite the Pledge of Allegiance at least once a week. Students can choose to participate. Minnetonka District Policy #531 states one or more times a week. At the high school, daily reciting of the Pledge has become a tradition.
The current version of the Pledge and its previous iterations can be seen as a tool that shapes how the country’s youth feel about our country. Max Barrett, ‘25, is a student who’s had the opportunity to go to different schools abroad and now attends Minnetonka. “None of the schools I went to in Singapore, Japan, Switzerland, or anywhere else had any sort of pledge or talk of nationalism before classes started,” Barrett says. “I see how it could be useful in promoting patriotism.” For students in elementary school who can be as young as four years old, encouraging them to pledge themselves to something they might not yet understand can seem like indoctrination. Doing the Pledge daily “feels dictator-y and weird” said Madeline Brown, ‘26.
During McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare, a time when many Americans and congresspeople feared the USSR’s potential influence over their country, Congress voted to add the phrase “under God” to the Pledge in 1954. The goal was to further separate themselves from the atheistic government of the communists; however, this, and many other governmental actions at the time, only further propagandized Americans against communism. Seeing as the Cold War has been over for decades, “under God” is the most outdated part of the Pledge. This is not to mention also how anti-American it is to reference Christianity in a pledge to a country that was founded on having freedom of religion, as well as the founding idea that church and state should be separate.
While the First Amendment protects students and teachers from being forced to pledge, in practice, the Pledge of Allegiance diminishes free speech and thought. The Pledge deindividualizes students, prompting them to act in accordance with one another in order to not stand out, rather than to form their own ideas.
No matter how patriotic you are, the Pledge clearly contradicts multiple American values. If America is so free and just, do we need to be told everyday how free we are?
