West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette of 1943
October 30, 2007
In 1940, following the Minersville School District v. Gobitis case involving Jehovah’s Witnesses, the West Virginia legislator amended its statues to require all of its schools to conduct courses of instruction in civics, history and in the Constitutions of the United States and of the State "for the purpose of teaching, fostering and perpetuating the ideals, principles and spirit of Americanism, and increasing the knowledge of the organization and machinery of the government." In 1942, largely based on the Court’s Gobitis ruling, the West Virginia Board of Education ordered that all students and teachers must salute the flag as part of the regular program of activities in public schools. This salute was originally defined by the Board as the common salute. However this salute was quickly objected to by several civic groups cited as "being too much like Hitler’s" and the Board of Education redefined the salute as the stiff-arm salute, which is what we commonly use today. Failure to salute was considered insubordination and could result in the student’s expulsion from school causing the parents to be fined up to $50 with up to 30 days in jail.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have a literal belief of the Bible, which forbids them from bowing down to any image, including the image of the flag. Therefore, they refused to salute it and several children where expelled and parents prosecuted for no other reason. It should also be noted that during this time period the United States had entered into World War II and the nation as a whole was in a patriotic fervor. It was in response to this general sentiment, which often turned into physical assaults against Jehovah’s Witnesses, that public opinion turned against the Gobitis ruling and Walter Barnette challenged the state’s law. The lower court ruled in favor of Barnette and the Board of Education appealed sending the case to the Supreme Court. Justice Frankfurter, the Justice who ruled on the Gobitis case, dissented as if it was a personal attack on him.
Justice Robert H. Jackson (whose opinion on the case is considered one of the great statements of freedom in American history) wrote for the majority and delivered the opinion of the Court, "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. We think the action of the local authorities in compelling the flag salute and pledge transcends constitutional limitations on their power, and invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control." The Court affirmed that the lower courts ruling was correct and overturned the Gobitis ruling.
I fervently agree with the ruling made by the court and think that the compulsory flag-salute for public schoolchildren violates the First Amendment. It is difficult at first to look past the patriotic overtone of this issue and consider the facts. The real issue at hand was does the State have the power to make you conform to majority opinion and punish your dissent, if it poses no threat. The resounding answer is no. The State should not be able to dictate and then make me conform to an ideology that is not my own and silence dissent. That, as history shows, only leads to exterminating dissenters and totalitarianism.
View a Wikipedia article discussing the West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette case.
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