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The Flag Salute Cases And The First Amendment, Stephen W. Gard

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The flag salute cases have been a source of endless fascination for legal and historical scholars. Most of this large body of scholarship has focused on the apparent oddity of Justice Frankfurter's view that there was no constitutional infirmity in the "petty tyranny" of a governmental requirement that school children engage in a hypocritical affirmation of belief. Unfortunately, the doctrinal importance of the opinions of Justices Jackson and Frankfurter in the flag salute cases as contrasting statements on the interpretation of the freedom of speech guarantee of the first amendment and the function of the judiciary in preserving our most …