Stay seated.
The Pledge of Allegiance doesn’t mean anything to most students and shouldn’t be mandated in Illinois schools.
At the age of five, we learned the 31 words of the pledge and have regurgitated them repeatedly for almost everyday of our lives. At this point, most students don’t even know what they’re saying. The Pledge has turned into an exercise of muscle memory and memorization rather than an appreciation for apparent “greatness” of our country. We rarely, if ever, stop to think about the words that we recite every morning.
The Pledge of Allegiance overemphasizes America’s greatness. The pledge claims that the US has “liberty and justice for all.” Any US resident who has paid attention to the news recently knows that we cannot honestly say this. With a line like “liberty and justice for all,” it should at least be true. It’s hard to go more than a few days in this country without hearing of injustice or discrimination of some type. The “all” in “liberty and justice for all,” doesn’t apply to everyone, and we shouldn’t require millions of students to say this everyday.
True, individual students cannot be forced to say the pledge, but they usually just recite it rather than look for the meaning behind the words. According to Professor Martha C. Nussbaum, Professor of Law and Ethics at The University of Chicago, the pledge creates “in-groups” and “out-groups.” Even if students aren’t forced to say the pledge, they can be put in an uncomfortable situation if they choose not to.
The United States is the only country that has a Pledge of Allegiance—some have similar traditions like songs or otherwise, but usually they are not recited every day at school. They are used when people are sworn into the military or when there is a large ceremony taking place. But the US is the only country where there are laws that require schools to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Having a pledge does not mean that you are anymore patriotic. If someone wants to show the love that they have for their country, there are countless other ways to do that.
One argument in favor of The Pledge is that there is value in tradition. The pledge is a phrase that almost every single American student can recite. Starting off the day by coming together to appreciate one common thing can create a unique bond, and pledging to the flag is a good way to do that. Everyone is familiar with it, and at this point it feels natural. Because of the value in tradition, it makes sense to keep the pledge in schools. However, tradition does not justify the incorrectness and hypocrisy of a meaningless ritual.
The Pledge of Allegiance is something that has become robotic and most students don’t even bother to say it. Making the pledge mandatory in schools is unnecessary and forceful and it’d be just the same, if not better off, without it.