Hawaii high school drops 'love for God' from honor code
By The Associated Press
01.29.03
HONOLULU — The phrase “love for God” will be dropped from the McKinley High School code of honor under settlement of a federal court lawsuit announced yesterday.
The agreement removes the code from materials published by one of Hawaii’s oldest public high schools but allows students to continue reciting it on their own and retains a historic plague at the school that displays the words, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii.
The settlement, the ACLU said, prohibits teachers or school officials from encouraging its recitation or spotlighting the plaque.
The code, written in 1927, says a student at the school, among other things, stands for “love of God and all mankind.”
The ACLU filed a lawsuit last year on behalf of student James Ornellas on grounds that the code violates the constitutional separation of church and state.
Including the reference in the code conveys the message that to be “honorable” a student must love God, the lawsuit said. This is improper because it excludes students who belong to minority religious faiths and students who are nonreligious, it said.
An attorney general’s opinion a year ago said the code, like the national motto, “In God We Trust,” is a code and not a prayer. State school Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto had said the code would stand.
Under the settlement, all posters, flyers and other items containing the code will be removed from the school and its Web site, and will no longer be printed in the school planner, handbook or other materials, according to the ACLU.
School officials are not allowed to support or encourage the recitation or singing of the code. But students will not be punished for reciting it on their own.
The settlement also allows a plaque made in 1927 which contains the Code of Honor to remain in the school’s Hall of Honor as long as it is not, according the ACLU, “distinguished through lighting placement or other means.”
McKinley was Hawaii’s only public school when it was established in 1865 as Fort Street English Day School in the basement of a church. Its move in 1907 into a new building coincided with the death of President William McKinley, who played role in annexing the Hawaiian Islands to the United States.
In addition to love for God and mankind, the code also pledges honesty, industry, purity, courage and brotherhood.