hools from requiring students to salute the flag. The injunction was granted by decree and affirmed by the Court, citing the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment (32). Before delving into its analysis of the case and a critique of the reasoning behind Gobitis, the Court noted that the forbidden behavior, refusing to salute the flag, was orderly and peaceful and did not in any way impinge upon the rights of other students or their ability to comply or disobey (31). Recognizing that the standard of "clear and present danger" was not in this case applicable, Justice Jackson removed the legal analysis from the arena of national security and self-preservation into which Frankfurter had wandered. "It would seem that involuntary affirmation could be commanded only on even more immediate and urgent grounds than silence," Jackson wrote (33). As the silence of the protesters did not in any way inhibit the expression the participants, the urgency did not exist.Jackson took the added measure of refuting the claim upon which Frankfurter's opinion rested: "Assurance that rights are secure tends to diminish fear and jealousy of strong government, and by making us feel safe to live under it makes for its better support (33)." He took further issue with the idea in Gobitis that intercession of the Court in matters of local authority would violate the School Board's authority in the case. Barnette countered that the Constitution is to protect citizens from local, in addition to federal, government (35). Barnette declared that the flag-salute requirement undermines the central purpose of the Bill of Rights itself, which was designed "to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts (35)." Jackson's statement significantly contrasts with the mentality driving the Gobitis...
