Students Suspended for Not Standing for Pledge

SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 5/15/2008 10:00:00 AM

Three eight-graders in northwestern Minnesota were recently suspended for not standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. School officials pointed to a school handbook rule, which says students must stand for the pledge, though they need not recite it.

The punishment, however, prompted protests against the school involved: Dilworth-Glyndon Felton Junior High School.  In a letter to the district, the head of the Minnesota American Civil Liberties Union said that the school's actions were unconstitutional.

Parents of the three also reacted. "My son wasn't being defiant against America," Kim Dahl, mother of Brandt, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Brandt also objected to the one day school suspension following the May 8 incident. The student called the suspension "kind of dumb because I didn't do anything wrong." He added: "It should be the people's choice."