Teacher Resources: Lesson Plan

To Pledge or Not To Pledge

Overview

Students in schools across the United States pledge the flag daily. What does the Supreme Court say about mandatory pledging? This lesson reviews the cases Minersville v. Gobitis and West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. Students will explore their rights, as well as how the Supreme Court has the ability to reverse earlier decisions.

National Curriculum Standards met by this lesson

For a list of standards that this unit addresses, click here.

Ties To Your Curriculum

This lesson ties into United States History when studying:

This lesson ties into United States Government/Civics when studying:

Time Required

1-2 50-minute class period plus research time

Materials

Class Set of the case summaries (below)

The Lesson

Anticipatory Set

  1. Ask students what they know about the Pledge of Allegiance. Have students volunteer facts.

Procedures

  1. Have students answer yes or no to the following question by a show of hands:

    2. Do students have to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school?

  2. Tell students that today's lesson will explore that question. The class will examine two Supreme Court cases that made decisions on mandatory pledge recitation: Minersville School District v. Gobitis and West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette.
  3. Pass out the case summaries and read them together. Pre-reading questions are given below in order to help students understand the issues.
  4. After reading the summaries, have students compare the two decisions. Use the pre-reading question to help facilitate the discussion.

Also of interest to students will be that these cases took place before Under God was added to the Pledge of Allegiance. In addition, the teacher may want to point out that these cases took place during World War II, which may or may not have influenced the cases, as patriotism was socially expected at the time.

TO PLEDGE OR NOT TO PLEDGE

Pre-reading Questions:

  1. Can a state require that all students recite a pledge in order to have conformity? (That is, if some students do not say the pledge, will it cause a disturbance among those students that do?)
  2. Is a mandatory pledge a violation of individual liberty?
  3. Can students refuse to a say a civil pledge if it goes against their religious beliefs?

Case Summaries

Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 1940

The Minersville School District required all students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. William and Lillian Gobitas, who were Jehovah's Witnesses, refused to say the pledge because it was against their religious beliefs. The school district expelled the siblings. The Gobitas children sued the school district on the grounds that the compulsory pledge violated their religious freedom and limited their access to public education.

The Supreme Court ruled in an 8 --1 decision that the mandatory flag salute was legal.

Below are excerpts from the decision.

We have held that, even though public education is one of our most cherished democratic institutions, the Bill of Rights bars a state from compelling all children to attend the public schools. Pierce v. Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary,:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=268&invol=510

--268 U.S. 510 , 45 S.Ct. 571, 39 A.L.R. 468. But it is a very different thing for this Court to exercise censorship over the conviction of legislatures that a particular program or exercise will best promote in the minds of children who attend the common schools an attachment to the institutions of their country.

--

That the flag salute is an allowable portion of a school program for those who do not invoke conscientious scruples is surely not debatable. But for us to insist that, though the ceremony may be required, exceptional immunity must be [310 U.S. 586, 600] given to dissidents, is to maintain that there is no basis for a legislative judgment that such an exemption might introduce elements of difficulty into the school discipline, might cast doubts in the minds of the other children which would themselves weaken the effect of the exercise.

--

A society which is dedicated to the preservation of these ultimate values of civilization may in self-protection utilize the educational process for inculcating 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 all fully respected.

From the dissenting opinion:

The law which is thus sustained is unique in the history of Anglo- American legislation. It does more than suppress freedom of speech and more than prohibit the free exercise of religion, which concededly are forbidden by the First Amendment and are violations of the liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth. For by this law the state seeks to coerce these children to express a sentiment which, as they interpret it, they do not entertain, and which violates their deepest religious convictions. It is not denied that such compulsion is a prohibited infringement of personal liberty, freedom of speech and religion, guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, except in so far as it may be justified and supported as a proper exercise of the state's power over public education. Since the state, [310 U.S. 586, 602] in competition with parents, may through teaching in the public schools indoctrinate the minds of the young, it is said that in aid of its undertaking to inspire loyalty and devotion to constituted authority and the flag which symbolizes it, it may coerce the pupil to make affirmation contrary to his belief and in violation of his religious faith. And, finally, it is said that since the Minersville School Board and others are of the opinion that the country will be better served by conformity than by the observance of religious liberty which the Constitution prescribes, the courts are not free to pass judgment on the Board's choice.

Concededly the constitutional guaranties of personal liberty are not always absolutes. Government has a right to survive and powers conferred upon it are not necessarily set at naught by the express prohibitions of the Bill of Rights. It may make war and raise armies. To that end it may compel citizens to give military service. ….. But it is a long step, and one which I am unable to take, to the position that government may, as a supposed educational measure and as a means of disciplining the young, compel public affirmations which violate their religious conscience.

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 1943

All public school students and teachers in West Virginia were required to salute the flag. Those who refused to do so were expelled and/or charged with delinquency.

The Supreme Court reversed its earlier decision in the Minersville School District v. Gobitis case and ruled that a compulsory pledge was unconstitutional.

Below are excerpts from the decision.

Symbolism is a primitive but effective way of communicating ideas. The use of an emblem or flag to symbolize some system, idea, institution, or personality, is a short cut from mind to mind. Causes and nations, political parties, lodges and ecclesiastical groups seek to knit the loyalty of their followings to a flag or banner, a color or design.

The State announces rank, function, and authority through crowns and maces, uniforms and black robes; the church speaks through the Cross, the Crucifix, the altar and shrine, and clerical raiment. Symbols of State often convey political ideas just as religious symbols come to convey theological ones.

Associated with many of these symbols are appropriate gestures of acceptance or respect: a salute, a bowed or bared head, a bended knee. A person gets from a symbol the meaning he puts into it, and what is one man's comfort and inspiration is another's jest and scorn.

--

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what will be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act of faith therein...

From the dissenting opinion:

The admonition that judicial self-restraint alone limits arbitrary exercise of our authority is relevant every time we are asked to nullify legislation. The Constitution does not give us greater veto power when dealing with one phase of 'liberty' than with another, or when dealing with grade school regulations than with college regulations that offend conscience…

--

We are not reviewing merely the action of a local school board. The flag salute requirement in this case comes before us with the full authority of the State of West Virginia. We are in fact passing judgment on 'the power of the State as a whole'.

--

The constitutional protection of religious freedom terminated disabilities, it did not create new privileges. It gave religious equality, not civil immunity. Its essence is freedom from conformity to religious dogma, not freedom from conformity to law because of religious dogma. Religious loyalties may be exercised without hindrance from the state, not the state may not exercise that which except by leave of religious loyalties is within the domain of temporal power. Otherwise each individual could set up his own censor against obedience to laws conscientiously deemed for the public good by those whose business it is to make laws.

Assessment

  1. Now that the students have heard two different opinions on a compulsory flag pledge, have them think about their own opinion--with which case decision do they agree?
  2. Students will write a short essay explaining their opinion. In the essay they should:
    1. State their opinion
    2. Reference the case's argument that agrees with their own
    3. Cite which particular arguments influenced their decision
Rubric for Pledge Opinion

 

Poor

Fair

Okay

Good

Excellent

Opinion

5

10

15

20

25

Summary of the Supreme Court's Decision

5

10

15

20

25

Explanation of Decision

5

10

15

20

25

Grammar & Mechanics

3

6

9

12

15

Spelling

2

4

6

8

10

Related Works

Case Law--this links to the full text case of Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 1940.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=310&invol=586

Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute--this site contains a posted unit on public schools and religious freedom.
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/2004/1/04.01.03.x.html

Oyez Project--this website is a very complete reference for the Supreme Court, including the latest cases and information. It also has the text for many Supreme Court cases.
http://www.oyez.org/oyez/frontpage

Interdisciplinary Works

Language Arts: Student could write an editorial or persuasive essay on their opinion of the compulsory pledge.

Language Arts: Students could debate whether a mandatory pledge is constitutional or unconstitutional.