Encyclopedia > Minersville School District v. Gobitis
Minersville School District v. Gobitis
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 11, 1943
Decided June 14, 1943
Full case name:
Minersville School District, Board of Education of Minersville School District, et al. v. Walter Gobitis et al.
Citations:
310 U.S. 586; 60 S. Ct. 1010; 84 L. Ed. 1375; 1940 U.S. LEXIS 1136; 17 Ohio Op. 417; 127 A.L.R. 1493
Prior appellate history:
Judgment for plaintiffs, injunction granted, 24 F. Supp. 271 (E.D. Pa. 1938); affirmed, 108 F.2d 683 (3rd Cir. 1939); certiorari granted, 309 U.S. 645 (1940)
Subsequent appellate history:
none
Holding
The First Amendment does not require States to excuse public school students from saluting the American flag and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance on religious grounds. Third Circuit reversed.
Court membership
Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes
Associate Justices James McReynolds, Harlan Fiske Stone, Owen Roberts, Hugo Black, Stanley Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William Douglas, Frank Murphy
Case opinions
Majority by: Frankfurter
Joined by: Roberts, Black, Reed, Douglas, Murphy
Concurrence by: McReynolds
Dissent by: Stone
Laws applied
U.S. Const. Amend. I
Overruled by
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)
Minersville School District v. Gobitis was a 1940U.S. Supreme Court case involving a Jehovah's Witness named Gobitas (the name was misspelled), in which the court had held that Witnesses could be forced against their will to pay homage to the flag. This decision had led to increased persecution of Witnesses. Gobitis was overturned by West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette in 1943.
External links
Full text of decision at findlaw.com (http://laws.findlaw.com/us/310/586.html)
The decision of this Court in MinersvilleSchoolDistrictv.
Gobitis and the holdings of those few per curiam decisions which preceded and foreshadowed it are overruled, and the judgment enjoining enforcement of the West Virginia Regulation is affirmed.
The states that require such a school exercise do not have to justify it as the only means for promoting good citizenship in children, but merely as one of diverse means for accomplishing a worthy end.
Gobitis (1940), the Court ruled that Lillian and William Gobitis, aged twelve and ten, could not be expelled for not reciting the pledge because their religious beliefs forbid them from pledging allegiance to anything but God.
The student was allowed back in school the next morning and the suspension was removed from his record.
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