West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette
| West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette | |
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| Argued March 11, 1943 Decided June 14, 1943 |
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| Full case name | West Virginia State Board of Education, et al. v. Walter Barnette, et al. |
| Citations | 319 U.S. 624 (more)
63 S. Ct. 1178; 87 L. Ed. 1628; 1943 U.S. LEXIS 490; 147 A.L.R. 674
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| Prior history | Injunction granted, 47 F. Supp. 251 (S.D. W. Va. 1942) |
| Holding | |
| The Free Speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits public schools from forcing students to salute the American flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance. District Court affirmed. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Jackson, joined by Stone, Black, Douglas, Murphy, Rutledge |
| Concurrence | Black, joined by Douglas |
| Concurrence | Murphy |
| Dissent | Frankfurter |
| Dissent | Roberts, Reed |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. I; W. Va. Code § 1734 (1941) | |
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This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
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| Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940) | |
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States holding that the Free Speech Clause of 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. 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."
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.
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 to change the school policy democratically.
However, in overruling Gobitis the Court primarily relied on the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment rather than the Free Exercise Clause.
In the 1930s, the government of Nazi Germany began arresting thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to salute the Nazi flag and sent them to concentration camps. In the United States, Jehovah's Witness national leaders advocated demonstrating solidarity with German Jehovah's Witnesses by refusing to participate in the daily flag salutes that had become compulsory in American schools. The Witnesses taught and still teach that the obligation imposed by the law of God is superior to that of laws enacted by temporal government. Their religious beliefs include a literal version of Exodus, Chapter 20, verses 4 and 5, which says: 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them.' They consider that the flag is an 'image' within this command. For this reason, they refused to salute the flag. Children of Jehovah's Witnesses had been expelled from school and were threatened with exclusion for no other cause. Officials threatened to send them to reformatories maintained for criminally inclined juveniles. Parents of such children had been prosecuted and were being threatened with prosecutions for causing delinquency. In 1935, 9-year-old Carlton Nichols was expelled from school and his father arrested in Lynn, Massachusetts for such a refusal. Additional refusals followed, one such leading to Minersville School District v. Gobitis Even after the Gobitis decision, Jehovah's Witnesses continued to refuse to say the pledge.
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