On Wednesday morning at Pine Bush High School in upstate New York, students rose for the Pledge of Allegiance as is routine. However, the words broadcast over the loudspeaker and through the halls were recited in Arabic in accordance with the school's celebration of Foreign Language Week.
Immediately, students were reported reacting quite negatively as they "catcalled" and denounced the recitation as inappropriate. The young man responsible for allowing the student to recite the morning's Pledge in Arabic was senior class president, Andrew Zink, who admitted, "I knew exactly what would happen."
And that he did. The school quickly "divided in half" as the school's superintendent described the scene. In the days following, cars showed up to the school with pro-America sentiments written on them:
The Pledge was also scheduled to be recited in Japanese, Italian, French, and Spanish, but the school district pointed to the recommendation by the education commissioner who stated that the Pledge will "only be recited in English."
An Islamic official in New York, Atif Hasan, spoke with the Times Herald-Record and said it was a mistake to allow the Pledge to be recited in any another language:
To me, that’s ludicrous. [The Pledge] belongs to the land. It should be in English. The language it was created in is the only language in which it should be said. It’s a beautiful pledge.
Hasan also questioned if translating the Pledge in any other language would allow the original intent to stay intact. Although he feels it important for schools to teach diversity, he added, "They took the wrong step. They shouldn’t bring the kids into that controversy.”
The school district issued an apology:
The intention was to promote the fact that those who speak a language other than English still pledge to salute this great country. We sincerely apologize to any students, staff or community members who found this activity disrespectful.
This New York high school's allowance of reciting the Pledge in Arabic follows behind a Colorado high school that did the same.
