Students at a California community college voted on Wednesday to ban reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at their trustee meetings.

The Orange Coast College’s student leaders said they see no reason to publicly swear loyalty to God and to the U.S. government, according to Reuters.

“Loyalty ought to be something the government earns through performance, not through reciting a pledge,” student trustee Jason Ball told Reuters.

In 2002, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled it unconstitutional to require public school children to recite the pledge because of the phrase “under God.” The U.S. Supreme Court later struck the ruling on procedural grounds.

Ball told Reuters that as an atheist and socialist, he found “under God” offensive.

Several other outraged students attended the meeting with American flags in support of keeping the pledge, according to The Associated Press.

Coast Community College District spokeswoman Martha Parham said the decision is up to the students, according to the AP.