Every day, students in classrooms across America recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Now, the oath is coming under legal fire from a Boston family alleging that the words “under God” violate the students’ rights, NBC News reports.

Since Congress added “under God” to the pledge in 1954, several lawsuits have argued that the phrase violates the United States’ constitutionally guaranteed separation of church and state. This new case, which is currently being appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, cites a different reason—that it’s a matter of discrimination and that the words “under God” violate the Equal Rights Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution.

The plaintiffs’ representative, David Niose, said Wednesday in his opening arguments that the pledge is alienating to non-religious kids. “It validates believers as good patriots and it invalidates atheists as non-believers at best and unpatriotic at worst,” he said. He added that atheist students “are denied meaningful participation in this patriotic exercise” because of the inclusion of religious language.

The family is hoping the Massachusetts court will decide that the daily recitation of the pledge is unconstitutional, the Boston Globe reports.

Arguing the other side of the case was Eric Rassbach, deputy general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “Most people do not view reciting the Pledge of Allegiance as saying a prayer,” he said. “It would be terrible to enshrine in the law this kind of allergy to God that the plaintiffs have.”

An attorney for the defendants, Geoffrey Bok, contended that the Pledge of Allegiance isn’t a religious affirmation, but a “statement of our political philosophy.”

Rassbach also pointed out that it is illegal to force someone to say the pledge—in 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that schools can’t require students to say the pledge or salute the American flag.

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