Don’t force pledge

Schools need to worry less about whether students stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and more about the job they're doing cultivating future citizens. Cameron Frazier, a 17-year-old junior at Boynton Beach High School, should have been allowed to sit quietly at his desk rather than told to stand during the pledge. But Cameron's teacher wouldn't have it. She berated him as unpatriotic, and he was removed from the class — an act that precipitated a lawsuit.

These cases crop up from time to time — a young person objects to standing for the pledge and gets into trouble. You would think that schools would have a better appreciation for freedom of speech and conscience.

"Love of country must spring from willing hearts and free minds," wrote the concurring Supreme Court justices in a 1943 case in which the court said that Jehovah's Witness children could not be compelled to stand and recite the pledge. The case stands as good law today.

But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals took things somewhat askew in deciding Cameron's case on Wednesday. While the court struck down a provision of Florida law requiring civilians to stand during the pledge, it also refused to invalidate another provision that compelled students to recite the pledge unless exempted by written parental permission.

In its misguided ruling, the court said that the parents' right to direct the upbringing of their children overrode a student's free speech rights. Then the court left it to a case-by-case judgment whether an individual student might be considered mature enough to assert his own free speech rights in school.

The ruling is an invitation to confusion and unnecessary litigation. Even so, all this fuss over a morning ritual that most students probably recite in a rote manner loses sight of what is truly important. Florida schools have done an abysmal job teaching civics, which is the only way students will be imbued with an understanding of why America is a nation worthy of fealty.

Any teacher or school administrator who cares whether their students are patriotic should worry far more about the fact that more than 40 percent of Florida citizens cannot identify the three branches of government than about who stands for the pledge.

Former Sen. Bob Graham has been on a crusade of sorts to bring substantive civics courses back into the public schools. The newly opened Bob Graham Center for Public Service at the University of Florida is devoted to the purpose of reinvigorating citizenship.

So instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars for lawyers to fight a student who wants to sit quietly during the pledge, how about putting that money toward training middle school teachers to inspire students in civics?

Then, maybe, not only will fewer students want to opt out of the exercise, but many more will understand what they are pledging allegiance to and why.