SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday put on hold its ruling barring the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public classrooms, pending an appeal to the Supreme Court.
The order followed a request from the Elk Grove Unified School District near Sacramento. The daughter of the man whose suit led the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to find the pledge unconstitutional attends school there.
Without Tuesday’s stay, public schools in nine western states would have been banned — beginning next Monday — from reciting the pledge, with its reference to “under God.” Those states are Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Oregon and Washington.
The stay gives the school district 90 days to ask the Supreme Court to review the ruling.
In June and again last Friday, the San Francisco-based appeals court ruled that the pledge is an unconstitutional endorsement of