Is the Constitution unpatriotic?

San Francisco Chronicle
Brad K. Brown
June 29, 1998

...On [April 1, 1998] at Fallbrook Union High School, [MaryKait] Durkee took a stand -- or, more accurately, refused to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance...It was a rejection of a society, she said, that has become too violent and a government that has become too corrupt.

Durkee's teacher didn't see it that way; neither did her fellow students, and they erupted.

Her classmates urged world history instructor Lutz Zastrow not to let Durkee ``get away with'' the boycott.

``Give her detention,'' they urged.

When the class had finished its recitation, Zastrow insisted that Durkee stand up alone and say the pledge. Three times he made the demand. Durkee loudly refused...

The country is periodically seized by these displays of patriotic fervor and reactionary measures, said constitutional law expert Robert Cole.

Far from symbolizing true unity and strength, however, they reflect ``a kind of lack of confidence or loss of identity that Americans have in what they really stand for,'' said Cole, professor emeritus and associate dean at the University of California's Boalt Hall School of Law in Berkeley.

...[School officials] say Durkee was disrespectful to her teacher when she raised her voice and have ordered her to serve four hours in Saturday detention.

Immediately after the incident, school officials also told Durkee she must stand during the pledge -- silently, if she wishes -- or leave the room until it's over...
The controversy could have been avoided, Durkee stated in a letter to school officials last month, if her teacher had respected her right to sit quietly...

The school district doesn't have a constitutional leg to stand on, said Jordan Budd, Durkee's ACLU attorney. The Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of thought and speech, he noted. ``You cannot be punished for exercising your constitutional rights,'' he said.

Law expert Cole agrees. So does the Supreme Court...

Fallbrook Union High sits near the Camp Pendleton Marine base in a staunchly Republican enclave of 30,000 people. After the incident, 400 out of 3,000 students signed a petition urging Durkee to stand for the pledge...

Durkee's mother, Ann, says the imbroglio has had a profound effect on her daughter.

...``But my daughter doesn't see the flag or the Pledge of Allegiance in itself as the ideals that these people went to war and fought for and died for. What they fought for, Ann Durkee says, ``is the freedom to live in this country. And the freedom that goes along with that is to think and to act freely.''

...Superintendent Anthony, for his part, says that until he receives an opinion from the school district's lawyers, the disciplinary action stands...