North Dakota School Board Votes to Remove Pledge of Allegiance for Not Aligning with Diversity Code
A woke Fargo, North Dakota, school board has dumped the Pledge of Allegiance in part because it contains two words that aren’t “inclusive” enough. The decision has caused accusations of anti-Americanism and riled the community.
The board made the decision to dump the Pledge even worse by only having passed a motion to open its meetings with the recitation on March 22. But only a few months later, on Tuesday, the board rescinded the motion in a 7-2 decision, according to Inforum.
The board’s vice president, Seth Holden, argued in favor of cutting part of the Pledge out because its words somehow violate the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion values.
Fargo school board drops Pledge of Allegiance over ‘under God’ phrase https://t.co/BximOOeNOr pic.twitter.com/Q4meH9YQII
— New York Post (@nypost) August 11, 2022
The problem came with two words — “Under” and “God.”
“Given that the word ‘God’ in the text of the Pledge of Allegiance is capitalized,” Holden told his fellow board members. “The text is clearly referring to the Judeo-Christian god and therefore, it does not include any other face such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, all of which are practiced by our staff and students at FPS.”
Holden added that even atheists are excluded from the sentiment in the Pledge because the words violate the “non-inclusionary act.”
“The statement that we are ‘one nation under God,’ is the Judeo-Christian God … is simply an untrue statement,” Holden said. “We are one nation under many or no gods.”
Board member Nyamal Dei, an immigrant to the U.S., chimed in on Holden’s point.
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“We live in a diverse community and that is what matters,” she added.
“I’m just not sure that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is a useful way to begin every one of our board meetings,” School Board President Dr. Tracie Newman said. “I would much prefer that we open our meetings with a shared statement of purpose that would bring us all together to do the work of the board.”
“Rather than starting our meeting on opposing sides of an issue, I’d rather us start by saying something unifying,” Newman added.
But the majority of board members who voted against the pledge saw stiff opposition among members of the public who came to the meeting to oppose the move against the Pledge.
One, former board member David Paulson, blasted the decision.
“We are misinterpreting the Pledge of Allegiance,” Paulson said during the meeting. “The pledge isn’t a show of our patriotism, it’s an affirmation of our commitment and our loyalty to the greater cause, and that greater cause is freedom.”
The state Republican Party also slammed the school board’s “laughable” decision as an “affront to our American values,” WCCO-TV reported.
“These positions like by the Fargo School Board just don’t align with North Dakota values. The logical solution is to just give parents that option to help educate their kids,” said Grand Forks state Sen. Scott Meyer.
This isn’t a Los Angeles, Chicago or New York City school board attacking patriotism and American traditions. This is a school district in rural North Dakota. If this doesn’t show how far left our system of education has become, what does?
Fortunately, parents are beginning to take notice of this leftism. Many are running for school boards all across the country and tossing leftists out of office, but the damage is deep and crisscrosses the nation in every state. It is a rot that runs deep. Let’s hope the good people of Fargo are paying attention.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
