What are the high points of Barnette v. West Virginia State Board of Education?

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The U.S. entry into world war ii after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was followed with renewed public displays of patriotism. Barnette arose in 1942, when the West Virginia State Board of Education responded to events by adopting a resolution requiring all public school children to salute the American flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance as part of the official activities carried out by teachers of kindergarten through twelfth grade. Students who failed to salute the flag or to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at appropriate times were subject to discipline, including expulsion from school and detention at state institutions for juvenile delinquents. Parents were subject to prosecution for the nonconforming behavior of their children. A lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Jehovah's Witnesses, whose children had been disciplined in West Virginia schools for refusing to salute the flag or to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In addition, a number of parents had been prosecuted for allowing their children to engage in such unpatriotic demonstrations. The West Virginia federal district court issued an injunction restraining the state from continuing to enforce the school board's resolution. Barnette v. West Virginia State Board of Education, 47 F.Supp. 251 (1942). The school board then appealed the case directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 6–3 decision, the Court struck down the resolution because it contravened the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The dramatic shift came, in part, with the replacement of three justices on the Court after Gobitis. Justice robert jackson, in his majority opinion, wrote that the resolution violated the students' freedom of speech and freedom of religion. "The very purpose of a Bill of Rights," the Court explained, is "to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities… ."The Court emphasized that under the bill of rights, neither freedom of speech nor freedom of worship may be curtailed by the popular vote of a legislative assembly, unless it is through the amendment process set forth in Article V of the U.S. Constitution, and then only with the approval of three-fourths of the states. Justice Jackson observed that the Founding Fathers "set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. "Saluting the American flag and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance are forms of symbolic expression, the Court ruled. Refusing to salute the flag or recite the Pledge of Allegiance may be a form of political protest, the Court pointed out, or it may reflect a conscientious decision made by a person of devout religious belief. In either case, the Court concluded, such symbolic expression is protected by the First Amendment. "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation," the Court wrote, "it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." ...