An_Overview_Of_Newdow_V._U.S._Congress

An Overview Of Newdow V. U.S. Congress An Overview of Newdow V. U.S. Congress By: Florie Mendiola Background Information: Michael Newdow, an atheist, has a daughter who attends public ele-mentary school in the Elk Grove Unified School District in California. Each day, following state law, the teachers lead students in a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. The specific law states that public schools begin each school day with "appropriate patriotic exercises" and that the Pledge would be sufficient to comply. The specific school policy states that "Each elementary school class [shall] recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag once each day." At no point was any student, including Newdow's daughter, forced to recite the Pledge. That has already been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (although it should be noted that Barnette was decided in 1943 and the words "under God" were not added until 1954). Instead, Newdow argued that his daughter suffered harm because she would: watch and listen as her state-employed teacher in her state-run school leads her classmates in a ritual proclaiming that there is a God, and that our's [sic] is 'one nation under God.' In other words, Newdow's position was that it is unconstitutional court, pledge, decision, under, god, because, school, supreme, religious, case, newdow, government, test, policy, circuit, states, religion, nation, allegiance, students, cir, words, very, united, unconstitutional, state, phrase, lemon, law, held, harm, district, 2002, time, one