## Facts

- California law required public schools to begin each day with “appropriate patriotic exercises” and stated that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance satisfied that requirement.
- A school district implemented the statute through a policy requiring each elementary school class to recite the Pledge daily.
- The Pledge recited in the plaintiff’s child’s classroom included “under God,” language added by Congress in 1954.
- The plaintiff, an atheist and a non-custodial parent of a minor child enrolled in the district, alleged the teacher-led classroom recitation subjected his child to a religious affirmation and interfered with his parental rights regarding the child’s religious upbringing.
- The plaintiff sued federal, state, and local defendants, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, including removal of “under God” from the Pledge and cessation of the school practice.
- The district court dismissed the complaint on defendants’ motions.
- The plaintiff appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the plaintiff had Article III standing to challenge the inclusion of “under God” and the daily teacher-led Pledge recitation in his child’s public-school classroom.
2. Whether the 1954 federal statute adding “under God” to the Pledge violates the Establishment Clause.
3. Whether a public school district’s policy requiring daily teacher-led classroom recitation of the Pledge including “under God” violates the Establishment Clause.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit held the plaintiff had standing based on alleged interference with his parental interest in directing his child’s religious upbringing and the child’s exposure to the challenged practice in public school.
- The court reversed the dismissal as to the Establishment Clause claims.
- The court held the 1954 Act adding “under God” to the Pledge violated the Establishment Clause.
- The court held the school district’s policy of daily teacher-led recitation of the Pledge, including “under God,” in elementary classrooms violated the Establishment Clause.
- A separate opinion concurred in part and dissented in part, concluding the practice was a permissible, historically accepted patriotic exercise rather than an establishment of religion.

## Legal Principles

- A parent may have standing to challenge public-school practices alleged to interfere with the parent’s ability to direct a child’s religious upbringing and to expose the child to the parent’s religious (or nonreligious) views.
- Under the Lemon test, government action violates the Establishment Clause if it lacks a secular purpose, has the primary effect of advancing religion, or creates excessive entanglement with religion.
- Under the endorsement test, government action is unconstitutional if it conveys official approval of religion and signals to nonadherents that they are outsiders.
- Under the coercion test in the public-school context, even if formal participation is optional, classroom and peer pressures may amount to coercion when the state, through teachers, leads students in a practice the court characterizes as religious.
- Legislative history and the context of compelled, teacher-led recitation by young students may support a finding that religious language in a daily classroom pledge is not merely “ceremonial” but instead advances religion.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit concluded that the plaintiff had standing and that both the federal addition of “under God” to the Pledge and a public elementary school’s policy of daily teacher-led recitation of that pledge violated the Establishment Clause because the government’s action lacked a sufficiently secular justification and, in the school setting, conveyed endorsement of theism and exerted coercive pressure on students.


Newdow v. U.S. Congress, 292 F.3d 597 (9th Cir. 2002)