Motto blitzkrieg is a teachable moment

On North Carolina’s “National and State Mottos in Schools Act”

Great Seal of the United States, adopted by an Act of Congress in 1782 — Public Domain.

The North Carolina Senate is currently considering a bill passed by the House that would require all schools to display the national and state flags in classrooms, the national and state mottos in a prominent location at the school, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance daily (but not compel students to participate as that would clearly be unconstitutional). Sponsored by members of the N.C. Prayer Caucus, the “National and State Mottos in Schools Act” (HB 965) would appropriate $25,000 from the General Fund to the Department of Public Instruction to implement these requirements and also “provide age-appropriate instruction on the meaning and historical origins of the flags, mottoes, and the Pledge of Allegiance.”

However, the proposed legislation offers no guidance on what such instruction might look like. As Rev. Dr. Jennifer Copeland, executive director of the N.C. Council of Churches, recently noted our “first [national] motto — adopted in 1782 for use on the seal of the United States, E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One) — has been used on money since 1795.” And the current official national motto, “In God We Trust,” was not adopted as an alternative until 1956 — to set the United States apart from a “godless” Soviet Union (The Progressive Pulse…