Promoted from the diaries by Caleb.

“One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

For the past few years, this line in the Pledge of Allegiance has caused an increasing amount of debate among Americans. Despite this debate, 85% of Americans still believe that “under God” should be kept in the Pledge, while only 8% do not. Forget the lawsuits, conflict, and uproar, saying that controversial line at schools daily is still part of the law.

Unfortunately, a Madison, Wisconsin high school has decided to go against that law over the past couple months.

Just last month, Samantha Murphy, a brave high school junior at Madison East High School, emailed me. In her freshman year, Madison East did not offer the Pledge every morning. Her family decided to talk to the principal and school board, reminding them that it is a state law to offer the Pledge every day. They pointed out Wisconsin State Statute Chapter 118, Section 6, which states “Every public school shall offer the pledge of allegiance or the national anthem in grades one to 12 each school day.”

After months of waiting and deciding if her family should go public with her school district’s unlawfulness and lack of patriotism, her school board finally obliged and started to offer the Pledge of Allegiance daily.

Samantha told me: “this went on without issue from around January of 2013 until March 4^th, 2014.” On March 4^th, Samantha says her school began to remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, and added that they thought they were “above the law.” On the first day of revision, they took out the entire line “one nation under God.” The next day, they merely skipped the words “under God.” On the third day, Thursday March 6^th, 2014, they replaced the word “God” with “peace.”

Although disrespectful to our great nation, we can all agree that it is a choice (under the 1^st Amendment) to stand and/or recite the Pledge at school, work, or in a public setting. But the fact that Madison East High School and its school district think they can rise above, change, and disobey the law without consequence is disturbing.

I applaud Samantha Murphy and her family’s courage in taking a stand with the Madison School District, but there comes a time when enough is enough. The principal of Madison East as well as the school board and superintendent should be extremely ashamed of themselves for continuing their inappropriate and unpatriotic actions, which started in 2001.

Mary Kelley, the principal of Madison East High School, could not be reached for this story.

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