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What Is The Supreme Court Case Of West Virginia State Board Of Education V. Barnette

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West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette is a Supreme Court case related to civil liberties whose ruling answered the question, "Is a compulsory flag-salute for public schoolchildren a violation of the First Amendment?" According to a precedent case (Minersville School District v. Gobitis) with the exact same circumstances as the Barnette case, there is no violation. However, the Supreme Court completely reverses the Gobitis ruling through the Barnette ruling. In 1942, the West Virginia State Board of Education enacted a rule after the decision on the Gobitis case, requiring students to salute the flag; refusal to do so was treated as insubordination and was punishable by expulsion and charges of delinquency. In addition, the parents of those students who were expelled were fined $50 every day since expelled students were considered “unlawfully absent.” Despite such a rule, the children of Walter Barnette and other Jehovah’s …show more content…

Interestingly, despite the issues of religion surrounding the case, the decision was reached due to a completely different reasoning; that the government cannot force anyone to express orthodox beliefs that are at odds with their conscience and values. According to the justices that ruled in favor of Barnette, the flag salute, in addition to the pledges, is a “form of utterance.” By enforcing a compulsory flag salute, the state board of education was creating a “compulsory unification of opinion,” inconsistent with the values of the First Amendment. The three other justices believed that the rules laid out by the state board of education was completely constitutional. Representing the dissenting judges, Justice Felix Frankfurter said, in essence, that the legislation was within the scope of power of the state because it encourages "good citizenship and national allegiance." Nevertheless, the case was decided in Barnette's

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The jury in the appellate court was divided which meant by default Tinker would have lost the case because the ruling was upheld from the first district court. Soon thereafter, the civil liberties union who was responsible for supporting the activism of the bill of rights picked up the case sending it to SCOTUS. This was a significant case therefore SCOTUS decided to hear the case. Finally, at the SCOTUS hearing, the court sided with Tinker on a 7-2 vote, stating that their rights were violated because there wasn’t any significant distraction to the schools learning environment.

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At first, Engel’s case was refused by Justice Bernard S. Meyer because he concluded that school prayer did not interfere with the public’s rights under the First Amendment. Later with the time, Engel did not give up on the case and took it to the Supreme Court instead of the New York Court of Appeals where it was reviewed for the second time. Finally, on June 25, 1962, the final decision was given and it declared the law unconstitutional (“Facts and Case Summary - Engel v. Vitale” 1). The opinion of the court was 6-1 in were six of them were concurrence and one of them dissented (Skelton 1). The author of the people who were concurrence was William Orville Douglas.

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