Army Staff Sgt. Cory Schroeder was told by University of Wyoming’s student government that he would be prohibited from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before its meetings because it could offend international students.

Schroeder was elected in May as a senator in the University of Wyoming (ASUW) government to serve for the upcoming school year. Schroeder served in the Army for over six years and completed tours of duty in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Campus Reform reported on Cory Schroeder, a student senator at the University of Wyoming in Laramie and a six-year Army veteran, and his desire to recite the pledge before student government meetings.

Schroeder was said to have been told by “multiple” fellow senators in the Associated Students of the University of Wyoming that the subject was “very touchy” and that there was the possibility of offending two international students in the organization. He was told to write a bill seeking to add the pledge at the beginning of meetings.

Campus Reform spoke to Schroeder who gave further details of the pledge ban.

Schroeder spoke with ASUW Vice President Ricardo Lind-Gonzales, who allegedly said that he would put the issue of the Pledge on the agenda and that Schroeder would be given a chance to speak about it. However, the issue was subsequently left off the agenda for the remainder of the school year.

Lind-Gonzales allegedly told Schroeder that the Pledge was a sensitive issue that could possibly offend the two international students in ASUW as well as several others who attend the meetings. The U.S. veteran was given the option of writing a bill to allocate 20 seconds at the beginning of the meetings for those who want to say the Pledge.

University of Wyoming President Dick McGinity even stepped into the fray.

McGinity, a Vietnam War veteran, issued a statement Tuesday evening regarding Staff Sgt. Schroeder’s efforts to have the pledge recited at ASUW meetings:

“As a fellow veteran, but speaking for myself only, I would like for all meetings of student government to begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. But this is not up to me. ASUW is an independent student organization with its own procedures and rules of conduct, and these elected student leaders make their own decisions. I respect that.”

Ricardo Lind-Gonzalez, ASUW vice president, seems to be sticking to his guns that Schroeder must write legislation and pass it through the student body in order to recite the pledge.

Leftist bureaucracies start earlier and earlier these days.