Students at Calif college ban Pledge of Allegiance

By Dan Whitcomb
Fri Nov 10, 1:53 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Student leaders at a California college have
touched off a furor by banning the Pledge of Allegiance at their meetings,
saying they see no reason to publicly swear loyalty to God and the U.S.
government.

The move by Orange Coast College student trustees, the latest clash
over patriotism and religion in American schools, has infuriated some
of their classmates -- prompting one young woman to loudly recite the
pledge in front of the board on Wednesday night in defiance of the rule.

"America is the one thing I'm passionate about and I can't let them take
that away from me," 18-year-old political science major Christine Zoldos
told Reuters.

"The fact that they have enough power to ban one of the most valued
traditions in America is just horrible," Zoldos said, adding she would
attend every board meeting to salute the flag.

The move was led by three recently elected student trustees, who ran
for office wearing revolutionary-style berets and said they do not believe
in publicly swearing an oath to the American flag and government at their
school. One student trustee voted against the measure, which does not
apply to other student groups or campus meetings.

The ban follows a 2002 ruling by a federal appeals court in San Francisco
that said forcing school children to recite the pledge was unconstitutional
because of the phrase "under God." The U.S. Supreme Court struck down
the ruling on procedural grounds but left the door open for another
challenge.

"That ('under God') part is sort of offensive to me," student trustee Jason
Ball, who proposed the ban, told Reuters. "I am an atheist and a socialist,
and if you know your history, you know that 'under God' was inserted
during the McCarthy era and was directly designed to destroy my
ideology."

Ball said the ban largely came about because the trustees didn't
want to publicly vow loyalty to the American government before
their meetings. "Loyalty ought to be something the government
earns through performance, not through reciting a pledge," he
said.

Martha Parham, a spokeswoman for the Coast Community College
District, said her office had no standing on the student board and
took no position on the flag salute ban.

"If their personal belief is that they don't want to say the Pledge
of Allegiance, the district certainly isn't going to dictate what they
do," she said.

More than 28,000 students attend the community college, located
in conservative Orange County, California, south of Los Angeles.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061110/us_nm/life_pledge_dc