No, two courts have held that students cannot be forced to stand while other students recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In Goetz v. Ansell (1973) and Lipp v. Morris (1978), the 2nd and 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, respectively, ruled that public school students could not be forced to stand silently while other students recited the pledge. The 2nd Circuit in Goetz explained: “the alternative offered plaintiff of standing in silence is an act that cannot be compelled over his deeply held convictions. It can no more be required than the pledge itself.”