The goal of every campus progressive has been achieved at one Florida school.

Rebecca Downs reports at Red Alert Politics.

College bans Pledge of Allegiance: It ‘violated beliefs in academic freedom’

WFLA.com reported that the advisory council for Hillsborough Community College, in Fla., voted at its September meeting to drop the Pledge of Allegiance from meetings.

What started out as a proposal to save time turned into a discussion about “the Pledge of Allegiance and its appropriateness in an institution of higher learning which fosters academic freedom and structured dissent against authority.”

The accuracy of the minutes was being disputed by chair Sunshine Gibbons, according to an e-mail to WFLAC. The minutes did, however, reflect that “the Pledge made some people uncomfortable and that it violated their beliefs in academic freedom and the goals of the IAC.”

Even if the decision did come down to a time-saver, sophomore Scott Vosler, still doesn’t support the decision. He spoke to Fox and Friends about the council’s decision and mentioned “to be honest, the 12, 15 seconds it takes to say the pledge of allegiance is an insignificant amount of time.”

Ashley Carl, who is the H.C.C. Director of Marketing and Public Relations, reiterated that they don’t support that decision, and that the minutes aren’t final. The college president will be going to the next meeting to discuss the issue.

Gibbons also wrote a response which says that “the Pledge was removed through a democratic process, and the terms ‘academic freedom’ and ‘structured dissent against authority’ were never discussed in the September meeting.”

As WFLAC also reported, many other students do not feel the decision speaks for them. A theme of their responses was that people don’t have to say the pledge if they don’t want to.