Doe v. Acton-Boxborough Regional School District

This case presents two questions of State constitutional and statutory law: first, whether the daily recitation of our Nation’s pledge of allegiance (pledge) in the defendants’ schools violates the plaintiffs’ equal protection rights under the Massachusetts Constitution, because the pledge includes the words “under God”; and second, whether the recitation of the pledge violates G. L. c. 76, § 5, which prohibits discrimination in Massachusetts public school education. We hold that the recitation of the pledge, which is entirely voluntary, violates neither the Constitution nor the statute.

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