Minersville School District V. Gobitis - Opinion of The Court

Opinion of The Court

The Court's decision was nearly unanimous; only Justice Harlan F. Stone dissented. In an 8-to-1 decision, the Court upheld the mandatory flag salute, declining to make itself "the school board for the country."

Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote the majority decision; in doing so, he relied primarily on the "secular regulation" rule, which weighs the secular purpose of a nonreligious government regulation against the religious practice it makes illegal or otherwise burdens the exercise of religion. He identified the Pennsylvania flag-salute requirement as an intrinsically secular policy enacted to encourage patriotism among school children.

Frankfurter wrote that the school district's interest in creating national unity was enough to allow them to require students to salute the flag. According to Frankfurter, the nation needed loyalty and the unity of all the people. Since saluting the flag was a primary means of achieving this legitimate goal, an issue of national importance was at stake.

The Court held that the state's interest in "national cohesion" was "inferior to none in the hierarchy of legal values".

National unity is the basis of national security. To deny the legislature the right to select appropriate means for its attainment presents a totally different order of problem from that of the propriety of subordinating the possible ugliness of littered streets to the free expression opinion through handbills.

Weighing the circumstances in this case, he argued that the social need for conformity with the requirement was greater than the individual liberty claims of the Jehovah's Witnesses. He emphasized that

Conscientious scruples have not, in the course of the long struggle for religious toleration, relieved the individual from obedience to a general law not aimed at the promotion or restriction of religious beliefs

Frankfurter further wrote that the recitation of a pledge advanced the cause of patriotism in the United States. He said the country's foundation as a free society depends upon building sentimental ties.

The flag, the Court found, was an important symbol of national unity and could be a part of legislative initiatives designed "to promote in the minds of children who attend the common schools an attachment to the institutions of their country."