Small Town Divided after High School Broadcasts Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic to the Outrage of Some Parents and Students

DAILY MAIL: Pine Bush High School in Upstate New York celebrated National Foreign Languages Week by reading the pledge in different tongues / Administrators were forced to apologize after the reading in Arabic stirred outrage in some parents and students / The pledge will henceforth only be read in English, officials said

A small town in Upstate New York stands divided after their high school's decision on Wednesday to broadcast the Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic.

It was meant as a way to celebrate National Foreign Languages Week--each day, the announcements and pledge at Pine Bush High School would be recited in a different tongue.

However, the outrage it caused in some students and parents quickly forced administrators to issue an apology and a promise to henceforth only recite the Pledge of Allegiance in English.

Now, lines have been drawn in Pine Bush (pop. 1,600) as some students and teachers are outraged that an apology was issued at all while others applaud the decision and say the pledge should never have been recited in a language other than English. » | Josh Gardner for DailyMail.com | Thursday, March 19, 2015

New York Town Orders Residents To Speak English
THE TELEGRAPH: A small town in rural New York state has passed a law that all town business be conducted in English, leading to accusations that it is stoking racial prejudice.

Jackson, a remote farming community of just over 1,700 people, has been attacked by civil liberties campaigners who say its new ordinance is unconstitutional and illegal.

However, it has already prompted a neighbouring town to pass a similar resolution and another will consider doing the same in June.

The Jackson law designates English as the town's official written and spoken language, insisting that it "be used in all official meetings and business conducted by the elected officials and their appointees".

Roger Meyer, 76, a town councillor and local sawmill owner, said he proposed the law to protect English and redress from the "grassroots" the federal government's historic failure to enshrine it as America's official language. "Everybody assumes that it is but it actually isn't," he said.

While successive waves of immigrants had happily adopted English in the past, "it seems like we're straying away from that now and people want to return to the culture of the country they came from", he said. "When people come to a country to improve their lot, they should assimilate into that country." He acknowledged that Jackson, which is 96 per cent white, hardly had a problem with cultural non-integration but he added: "A construction worker doesn't wear a hard hat because he's never been hit in the head. We just can't sit idly by and wait for something to happen." Despite his insistence that the ordinance was not aimed at Hispanic people, that is how its critics are interpreting it. >>> Tom Leonard in New York | Thursday, May 13, 2010

Our Thoughts and Prayers for Beverly Eckert, 9/11 Widow
Her husband died in the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre after phoning to say that he loved her. As she flew to commemorate his 58th birthday and to establish a scholarship in his name at the high school where they met, Beverly Eckert also met her death in a fiery plane crash.

Ms Eckert was among 50 people who died when a Continental Connection commuter plane nosedived into a house in New York State, killing everyone on board and one person on the ground.

Last week Ms Eckert had met President Obama at the White House when he briefed the families of terrorism victims on the new Administration’s approach to terror suspects. 9/11 Widow Beverly Eckert among 50 Dead as Plane Lands on House >>> James Bone in New York | Saturday, February 14, 2009

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