Last week, it was reported that an eighth grade student in Santa Rosa, California declined to say the Pledge of Allegiance and was sent out of the classroom by his teacher. Though California law requires students to participate in some type of patriotic exercise, no state can require a student to say the Pledge. That legal precedent was set in 1943. The student, who objected to what he considered corrupt decisions made by U.S. leaders, presented his teacher with a packet of information regarding his legal rights. The teacher threw the packet in the trash and said he didn't care what the law was.

Well, there's a patriotic exercise for you, and an experiential one, at that. Demand that a student do something against his will and within his rights to refuse to do, ban him, and tell him that the law is immaterial. It was only a class in U.S. history and the Constitution. No harm done.