Republicans in a state legislative subcommittee in Iowa forwarded a bill last week to force students to stand for and “respect” the singing of the Star Spangled Banner each day, a move that critics say would violate the free speech rights of children.
House Study Bill 587, sponsored by state Rep. Skyler Wheeler (R), modifies the state’s social studies curriculum to include instruction on “how to love, honor, and respect” the national anthem. It also mandates that “all teachers and students who are physically able shall stand at attention and remove any headdress that is not being worn for religious purposes” during the anthem.
Under the bill, students who don’t want to sing would be forced to stand and maintain a “respectful silence” during the daily ritual.
Last Wednesday, two Republicans on the three-member subcommittee considering the bill voted to forward it to the state legislature. State Rep. Sue Cahill, a Democrat who is opposed to the bill, sang the anthem during her closing remarks of the subcommittee meeting, saying that while she isn’t opposed to displays of patriotism, she doesn’t believe students should be required to participate.
“Our Capitol is the perfect place to show patriotism,” Cahill said. “[But] I think that’s something students choose and it’s something that they learn and they’ll learn it in other ways.”
Though opposition to singing and/or standing for the national anthem has existed throughout U.S. history, acts of protest against the anthem became more prominent following uprisings against the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. Critics of the anthem, which was written by lawyer Francis Scott Key in 1814, noted that it includes a verse chastising enslaved Black people for siding with the British during the War of 1812 after being promised their freedom for doing so.
That verse reads:
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
The bill doesn’t require that verse to be sung each day, but would require all verses to be sung at “patriotic occasions,” during which students would be forced to stand regardless of their views on the verse.
Beyond its references to slavery, the national anthem has faced backlash for glorifying U.S. militarism, specifically the line that references “bombs bursting in air.”
“US bombs don’t burst in air, they burst in homes, hospitals, schools, cities, and villages, murdering men, women, and children,” Palestinian American poet and organizer Remi Keanazi wrote on X in 2018. “The national anthem is a symbol of violence and jingoism.”
Critics blasted the Iowa bill for violating the rights of students who didn’t want to participate.
“While — putting on my personal hat — I’m not crazy when people decide to kneel or sit for the national anthem, I one hundred percent respect their Constitutional right to do so,” said Damian Thompson, a lobbyist for Iowa Safe Schools, an organization that promotes rights and protections for LGBTQ students in the state. “And by mandating that they stand, our students’ First Amendment rights would be violated.”
Other social media users noted that Iowa lawmakers should prioritize the material conditions of their constituents.
“We have polluted waterways, some of the highest cancer rates in the country, bridges that are at the end of their lifespans, lack of rural healthcare, but our legislature is worried about making kids sing the national anthem…why do we elect these kinds of people?” a coach at an Iowa high school wrote on X.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy