West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette
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| West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette | |||||||
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 Supreme Court of the United States | |||||||
| Argued March 11, 1943 Decided June 14, 1943 | |||||||
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| The First Amendment prohibits public schools from forcing students to salute the American flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance. District Court affirmed. | |||||||
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| U.S. Const. Amend. I; W. Va. Code § 1734 (1941) |
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution protected students from being forced to salute the American flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance in school.
It was a significant court victory won by Jehovah's Witnesses, whose religion forbade them from saluting or pledging to political institutions or symbols. 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.
Barnette overruled a 1940 decision on the same issue, Minersville School District v. Gobitis (also involving the children of Jehovah's Witnesses), in which the Court stated that the proper recourse for dissent was to try and change the school policy democratically. In Barnette, however, Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote for the majority that "the very purpose of the Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities ... One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote."
"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation," Jackson added in an oft-quoted sentence, "it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion."