In 1940, 14 years before Congress added “under God” to the Pledge, a school district in Pennsylvania said that students had to recite the Pledge. And then the Supreme Court said it was OK for the school district to expel students who didn’t.
A brother and sister – Jehovah’s Witnesses – were expelled from school when they refused to recite the Pledge. Their father filed suit asking that his children be allowed to attend public school without having to recite the Pledge, without having to offend their beliefs. The court found that the Pledge fostered national unity, that unity was the basis for national security, and that national security was far more important than a religious belief. The court ruled that children in public schools could be required to recite the Pledge, and that they could be expelled if they refused.
The Minersville ruling had an unintended consequence: a striking increase in the public persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Because of their refusal to recite the Pledge, they were considered unpatriotic. Many were beaten; others were stoned by mobs of patriots.
Just three years after the Minersville decision, the high court reconsidered the matter. West Virginia had passed a law that made it an Act of Insubordination for public school students to refuse to recite the Pledge. Parents could be sent to jail if their children refused, and the children could be sent to reformatories. Once again, the law and the religious beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses were in conflict. The court ruled that requiring students to recite the Pledge, “invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control.” Minersville was history. Students could no longer be required to recite the Pledge.
In 1962, the court heard this case about a prayer that was recited at the beginning of each school day in the public schools in New York. The prayer – written by the State Board of Regents – was recited right after the Pledge. Even though students were no more required to recite the prayer than the Pledge, the court found the prayer itself unconstitutional. “When the power, prestige and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain.” The court also found that “The Pledge of Allegiance, like the [New York] prayer, recognizes the existence of a Supreme Being.”
The Pledge came up in this 1963 case about a Pennsylvania law that required that, “At least ten verses from the Holy Bible shall be read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each school day.” In the Abington school district, the reading of the bible verses was followed by a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, and then the Pledge of Allegiance.
Edward Schempp’s children attended school in the Abington district, and Schempp brought the suit to end the bible readings and prayer. The court ruled in Schempp’s favor. In it’s decision, the court mentioned the Pledge, in a section headed Activities Which, Though Religious in Origin, Have Ceased to Have Religious Meaning.
In 1983, the court concluded that a state could pay a Presbyterian minister to say a prayer at the start of each session of the legislature. It found that legislative prayers were constitutional since they were a 200-year-old tradition. The court also found that the phrase “under God” had been in the Pledge so long – almost 30 years – that it had “lost any true religious significance.”
This case, decided in 1984, involved a religious display on public property, and it was the first case to refer to the notion of Ceremonial Deism. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Brennnan had this to say:
“While I remain uncertain about these questions, I would suggest that such practices as the designation of ‘In God We Trust’ as our national motto, or the references to God contained in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag can best be understood . . . as a form a ‘ceremonial deism,’ protected from Establishment Clause scrutiny chiefly because they have lost through rote repetition any significant religious content.”
In 1982, an Alabama law authorized public school teachers to lead “willing students” in a prayer to “Almighty God . . . the Creator and Supreme Judge of the world.” Then, in 1984, a District Court found that “Alabama has the power to establish a state religion if it chooses to do so.” Guess what? That finding was appealed to the Supreme Court. The high court found the Alabama law unconstitutional. In his dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Burger posed a question: did the Act of Congress that added “under God” to the Pledge “render the Pledge unconstitutional?”
In 1989, the court heard this case about religious displays on public property. In its ruling, the court noted that, unless it allowed exceptions to the Establishment Clause in accord with the notion of Ceremonial Deism, “such practices as our national motto (‘In God We Trust’) and our Pledge of Allegiance (with the phrase ‘under God,’ added in 1954, . . . ) are in danger of invalidity.”
And in 1992, the court determined that having clergy offer prayers at public school graduation ceremonies was forbidden by the Establishment Clause. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Scalia posed this question: “Must the Pledge therefore be barred from the public schools (both from graduation ceremonies and from the classroom)?”