Pledge of Allegiance will no longer be a requirement for students at a Maryland school after external pressure

Twin Ridge Elementary School, located in Mount Airy, Md., was forced to remove the clause that asked students and staff to say the Pledge of Allegiance, after the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonprofit organization that claims to defend the right to freedom of expression and thought, criticized to the school policy.

"FIRE demands that a public elementary school in Maryland retract its unconstitutional guidance that students and staff must stand and salute the U.S. flag during the Pledge of Allegiance," the organization said in a statement.

"The First Amendment protects not only your right to express yourself, but also the right to refrain from doing so," said FIRE Program Manager Stephanie Jablonsky. "That includes refusing to salute the flag. Mandatory patriotism is no patriotism at all."

The school's clause stated that "all students and teachers are required to stand and face the flag and while standing give an approved salute and recite in unison the pledge of allegiance."

'Everyone should stand for the pledge'

Criticism of the school for obeying what some try to impose and of FIRE for opposing patriotism did not take long to come. A Maryland mother named Kathleen Champion spoke to Fox News to say that the Pledge of Allegiance should be mandatory in virtually all cases.

"I do believe that everybody should stand for the pledge. I do understand that some people have religious beliefs that makes them have a difference from it, and that makes sense. I think that that should be the only exception that there is from it. But I really, honestly don't understand why people have a problem standing and saying the pledge in this country," Champion explained. "I think one of the big problems is that our students don't really know why they don't stand up for the oath. If the schools just encourage them to do it, I think that they would actually stand."