4/6/2023 0 Comments Define gravenTreating the flag salute as a form of speech, Jackson argued that the government cannot compel citizens to express belief without violating the First Amendment. Jackson wrote the court’s opinion, widely considered one of the most eloquent expressions by any American jurist on the importance of freedom of speech in the U.S. In Barnette, the court relied primarily on the free-speech clause rather than the free-exercise clause. Gobitis (1940), in which the court had rejected a challenge by Jehovah’s Witnesses to a similar Pennsylvania law. Its decision overturned an earlier case, Minersville School District v. The Jehovah’s Witnesses argued that saluting the flag was incompatible with their religious beliefs barring the worship of idols or graven images and thus constituted a violation of their free exercise of religion and freedom of speech rights. Students who did not participate faced expulsion. A group of Jehovah’s Witnesses challenged the state’s law requiring all public school students to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The first major Supreme Court decision protecting the First Amendment rights of children in a public elementary school was West Virginia State Board of Education v. The latter group of students, presumably more mature, do not present the kind of disciplinary problems that educators encounter in grade school and high school, so the courts have deemed it reasonable to treat the two groups differently. Private schools are not government actors and thus there is no state action trigger.Īnother important distinction that has emerged from Supreme Court decisions is the difference between students in public elementary and secondary schools and those in public colleges and universities. Thus, to speak of the First Amendment rights of students is to speak of students in public elementary, secondary, and higher education institutions. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) that public students do not “shed” their First Amendment rights “at the schoolhouse gate.”Ĭonstitutional provisions safeguarding individual rights place limits on the government and its agents, but not on private institutions or individuals. Public school students enjoy First Amendment protection depending on the type of expression and their age. (AP Photo, used with permission from the Associated Press) 116 in Manhattan salutes the flag in 1957. The Supreme Court overturned the state's law requiring all public school students to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
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