The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday said it would not revisit last year's ruling that upheld a Florida school policy requiring students to get a parent's permission to avoid having to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
A federal district judge had agreed that the rule "robs the student of the right to make an independent decision whether to say the pledge." But last July, an 11th Circuit panel said said the Florida law protects parents' constitutional rights to bring up their children as they see fit.
"The State, in restricting the student's freedom of speech, advances the protection of the constitutional rights of parents: an interest which the State may lawfully protect," the panel said.
Judge Rosemary Barkett dissented from the court's refusal to rehear the case, saying it "directly contravenes" the U.S. Supreme Court's 1943 ruling that held that states may not compel minor students to recite the pledge.
She added that the panel "mischaracterized the issue as one involving the resolution of conflicting constitutional rights between parents and children....because the State itself cannot compel speech, it lacks the capacity to delegate to parents the power to compel this speech," she wrote.
I am with Rosemary. Parents need to read more of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet: "your children are not your children..." and if they are now they will not be after long...
The case is Frazier v. Alexandre, No. 06-14462.
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