On this day, June 14, 1943, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette was decided.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.

Tue Jun 14, 2022: On this day, June 14, 1943, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette was decided.

Mon Jun 14, 2021: On this day, June 14, 1943, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette was decided.

Sun Jun 14, 2020: On this day, June 14, 1943, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette was decided.

Sat Jun 15, 2019: Happy 76th anniversary, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette

Thu Jun 14, 2018: Happy 75th anniversary, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette

Argued March 11, 1943
Decided June 14, 1943

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), is a decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment protects students from being forced to salute the American flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance in public school. The Court's 6–3 decision, delivered by Justice Robert H. Jackson, is remembered for its forceful defense of free speech and constitutional rights generally as being placed "beyond the reach of majorities and officials."

Barnette overruled a 1940 decision on the same issue, Minersville School District v. Gobitis, in which the Court stated that the proper recourse for dissent was to try to change the public school policy democratically. It was a significant court victory won by Jehovah's Witnesses, whose religion forbade them from saluting or pledging to symbols, including symbols of political institutions. However, the Court did not address the effect the compelled salutation and recital ruling had upon their particular religious beliefs but instead ruled that the state did not have the power to compel speech in that manner for anyone. In overruling Gobitis the Court primarily relied on the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment rather than the Free Exercise Clause.

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Decision of the Court

The Court held, in a 6-to-3 decision delivered by Justice Jackson, that it was unconstitutional for public schools to compel students to salute the flag. It thus overruled its decision in Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), finding that the flag salute was "a form of utterance" and "a primitive but effective means of communicating ideas." The Court wrote that any "compulsory unification of opinion" was doomed to failure and was antithetical to the values set forth in the First Amendment. The Court stated:

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.

The Supreme Court announced its decision on June 14, Flag Day.

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Robert H. Jackson



Robert Houghwout Jackson (February 13, 1892 – October 9, 1954) was an American attorney and judge who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He had previously served as United States Solicitor General, and United States Attorney General, and is the only person to have held all three of those offices. Jackson was also notable for his work as the Chief United States Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals following World War II.

Jackson was admitted to the bar through a combination of reading law with an established attorney, and attending law school. He is the most recent justice without a law degree to be appointed to the Supreme Court. Jackson is well known for his advice that, "Any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect, in no uncertain terms, to make no statement to the police under any circumstances", and for his aphorism describing the Supreme Court, "We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final." Jackson developed a reputation as one of the best writers on the Supreme Court, and one of the most committed to enforcing due process as protection from overreaching federal agencies.

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More:

Sun Feb 4, 2018: Gym teacher accused of assaulting student who wouldnt stand for Pledge of Allegiance

Mon Sep 8, 2014: Remembering the Brave Young Woman Who Refused to Say the Pledge of Allegiance Nearly 80 Years Ago

William (left) and Lillian (right) with father Walter Gobitas (via Jehovah’s Witnesses)

September 8, 2014
by Hemant Mehta

Usually, when I mention Jehovah’s Witnesses on this site, it’s not for a good reason. But we owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude.

In 1935, fifth-grader William Gobitas refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance because treating the flag like an idol went against his family’s JW faith. His 12-year-old sister Lillian did the same thing the next day.

They were both expelled from the Minersville School District in Pennsylvania quickly after that. Their parents were forced to pay for a private school, and that was the beginning of a lawsuit that went all the way up to the Supreme Court.

In 1940, in Minersville School District v. Gobitis, the Court ruled 8-1… in favor of the school district. Seriously. They said it wasn’t a violation of religious freedom to compel students to say the Pledge. It was such an awful decision, the Court (with a different makeup) reversed itself three years later in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/09/08/remembering-the-brave-young-woman-who-refused-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance-nearly-80-years-ago/



http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=310&invol=586

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=319&page=624

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Kevin M. Kruse on the 80th anniversary of the "flag salute case" of 1943

Just added a new post on my HoagieHeap site about the 80th anniversary of the "flag salute case" of 1943.

Check it out here, for free: https://bit.ly/3Jitk14

Link to tweet

Campaign Trails

For Which It Stands

KEVIN M. KRUSE
JUN 15, 2023

Sorry to be a little late with this — as a historian, I’m not very good with dates — but yesterday actually marked the 80th anniversary of a landmark Supreme Court decision, the so-called “flag salute case” of West Virginia v. Barnette (1943).

In truth, the decision was the second “flag salute case” decided by the Supreme Court that decade.

The first case, Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), involved a pair of children who had been expelled from their Pennsylvania school district for refusing to salute the American flag. Lillian and William Gobitas — a court clerk misspelled their name and it stuck — were Jehovah’s Witnesses who regarded the flag salute as akin to worshipping a graven image in violation of the Ten Commandments.

The Gobitas family insisted their religious beliefs warranted exemption from the mandatory practice, but the Supreme Court disagreed. In an 8-1 decision for the Court, Justice Felix Frankfurter essentially ruled that patriotism trumped religious beliefs. “National unity,” he held on the eve of World War II, “is the basis for national security.” Americans had to salute the flag, even if they didn’t want to.

Immediately after the Court’s decision in June 1940, the country was rocked by a wave of violence targeting Jehovah’s Witnesses. In Kennebunk, Maine, a mob burned down Kingdom Hall, headquarters for the local community of Jehovah’s Witnesses. In the coal town of Litchfield, Illinois, a mob of a thousand locals attacked proselytizing Witnesses and destroyed over a dozen of their cars.

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The Gobitas family insisted their religious beliefs warranted exemption from the mandatory practice, but the Supreme Court disagreed. In an 8-1 decision for the Court, Justice Felix Frankfurter essentially ruled that patriotism trumped religious beliefs. “National unity,” he held on the eve of World War II, “is the basis for national security.” Americans had to salute the flag, even if they didn’t want to.

Immediately after the Court’s decision in June 1940, the country was rocked by a wave of violence targeting Jehovah’s Witnesses. In Kennebunk, Maine, a mob burned down Kingdom Hall, headquarters for the local community of Jehovah’s Witnesses. In the coal town of Litchfield, Illinois, a mob of a thousand locals attacked proselytizing Witnesses and destroyed over a dozen of their cars.

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The ugly pattern replayed across the nation, with over 1,500 incidents over the next six months. “In 44 states they were beaten, kidnapped, tarred and feathered, forced to drink castor oil, tied together and chased through the streets, maimed, shot, and otherwise consigned to mayhem,” noted an attorney.

When a southern sheriff was asked about a riot in his town, he simply shrugged: “They’re traitors — the Supreme Court says so, ain’t you heard?”

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The Supreme Court rarely reverses itself, and even more rarely does it quickly, but the wave of violence was so pronounced that the Supreme Court took up another flag salute case just a few years later, styled West Virginia v. Barnette. The case again involved two children who were Jehovah’s Witnesses (and, once again, believe it or not, the family name was misspelled by the court clerks: it was Barnett, not Barnette).

This time around, the Supreme Court got the matter right, overturning the Gobitis mistake by a 6-3 margin and ruling in favor of the Witnesses.

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Justice Robert Jackson wrote the decision for the majority, crafting what might well be my favorite piece of writing ever to come from the Supreme Court.

To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.

And yes, the Court made a point to release the decision on Flag Day.

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