Significance: This case marked the first time the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of requiring students to salute the flag.
Background: The Minersville School District expelled a group of Jehovah’s Witness students who refused to salute the flag because of their religious beliefs. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe it wrong to pledge allegiance to something other than to God.
Decision: This case was argued on April 25, 1940, and decided on June 3, 1940, by a vote of 8 to 1. Justice Felix Frankfurter spoke for the Court. On examining this challenge to the free exercise of religion, the Court decided that the flag ceremony was necessary to American society. Being a symbol of national unity, saluting the flag could be required in schools, and to make exceptions for some students might weaken the effect of the ceremony. In addition, the Court also said that freedom of religion did not give someone the right to behave unreasonably. Chief Justice Harlan Stone dissented.
Excerpt from the Opinion of the Court: “The preciousness of the family relation, the authority and independence which give dignity to parenthood, indeed the enjoyment of all freedom, presuppose the kind of ordered society which is summarized by our flag. A society which is dedicated to the preservation of these ultimate values of civilization may in self-protection utilize the educational process for inculcating [inspiring] those almost unconscious feelings which bind men together in a comprehending loyalty, whatever may be their lesser differences and difficulties. That is to say, the process may be utilized so long as men’s right to believe as they please, to win others to their way of belief, and their right to assemble in their chosen places of worship for the devotional ceremonies of their faith, are fully respected.”
