The West Virginia State Board of Education required public school students to salute the American flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Students who refused were treated as insubordinate, expelled from school, and their parents could face prosecution for causing truancy. Jehovah's Witness students and their families objected on religious grounds, arguing that the compulsory salute and pledge violated the First Amendment. They sought injunctive relief against enforcement of the rule.
Does a state violate the First Amendment, as applied through the Fourteenth Amendment, by compelling public school students to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance?
The First Amendment forbids the government from compelling individuals to declare a belief or to engage in speech affirming an orthodoxy in matters of opinion, religion, or politics. Schoolchildren do not shed First Amendment protections at the schoolhouse gate merely because attendance is compulsory.
Yes. The Court held that West Virginia's compulsory flag-salute and pledge requirement violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
Justice Jackson explained that the constitutional problem was not merely religious coercion but compelled expression: the state cannot force individuals to affirm a belief. The flag salute and pledge were a form of utterance and symbolic speech, and requiring them invaded freedom of mind. The Court rejected the idea that national unity could be secured by coercion, concluding that official attempts to prescribe orthodoxy are incompatible with the First Amendment. It expressly overruled Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940).
Justice Frankfurter dissented, arguing that the Court should defer to the elected legislature and school authorities on matters of educational policy and national cohesion, and that judges should not invalidate a generally applicable law simply because it burdens particular religious convictions.
Barnette is a foundational compelled-speech decision and a landmark statement that the government may not prescribe orthodoxy in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion. It overruled Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940), and later influenced compelled-speech cases such as Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U.S. 705 (1977), Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241 (1974), and Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, 585 U.S. ___ (2018).
Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940) |
Abstain |
Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U.S. 705 (1977) |
Abstain |
Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241 (1974) |
Abstain |
Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940) |
Abstain |
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