Justin Driver - The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind

Copyright 2018 by Justin Driver

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Name: Driver, Justin, author

Title: The schoolhouse gate : public education, the Supreme Court, and the battle for the American mind / Justin Driver.

Description: New York : Pantheon, 2018. Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017058167. ISBN 9781101871652 (hardcover). ISBN 9781101871669 (ebook).

Subjects: LCSH : StudentsCivil rightsUnited States. Educational law and legislationUnited States. Constitutional lawSocial aspectUnited States.

BISAC : EDUCATION/Educational Policy & Reform/General. LAW/Constitutional. LAW/Civil Rights.

Classification: LCC KF 4150 . D 75 2018 | DDC 344.73/0793dc23 | LC record available at lccn.loc.gov/2017058167

www.pantheonbooks.com

Cover design by Jenny Carrow

Endpaper maps by Mapping Specialists

Ebook ISBN9781101871669

v5.3.2

a

For Rebecca Callen Driver and Terrell Glenn Driver, my first and most formative educators

Introduction

On June 5, 1940, hours before Katharine Meyer would marry Philip Graham at her familys sprawling, lavish estate in Mount Kisco, New York, the happy couple joined an intimate collection of friends for what was meant to be a celebratory luncheon. It would have been difficult to envision a more stately location for the gathering, as the property called Seven Springs Farm contained one thousand acres of land and a nearly thirty-thousand-square-foot Georgian mansion, boasting some fourteen bedrooms, three swimming pools, two servants quarters, and its own elevator. Despite this grand setting, the pre-wedding luncheon proved anything but festive. Instead, what began as an engaging discussion rapidly descended into a ferocious dispute, with several members of the wedding partyincluding both bride and groomexcoriating Justice Felix Frankfurter for an opinion that he issued on behalf of the U.S. Supreme Court only two days earlier. Frankfurterwho prior to joining the Court had been a legendary professor at Harvard Law School, where he was also Philip Grahams beloved mentorusually relished nothing more than vigorous, even combative intellectual exchange. Indeed, The New York Times would remember Frankfurter as the greatest talker of his time and noted, He loved to argue, his head darting here and there, his hand suddenly gripping the listeners elbow as he made a point.

In Mount Kisco, however, the silver-tongued Frankfurter received more than he could handle. Even close to six decades after the incident, the ugly scene at Seven Springs remained with Katharine Graham, as she recalled in her memoir, Personal History: Felix loved and encouraged loud and violent arguments, which everyone usually enjoyed, but this time the argument went over the edge into bitter passion. Those in attendance reviled Frankfurters opinion as deeply disturb[ing] and shock[ing], she noted. The debate grew so intense, so strained that the grooms best man dissolved into emotion as he emitted not merely discreet sniffles, but full-fledged waterworksshedding great large tears that he permitted to stream down his crimson cheeks.

What legal decision elicited this acrimony on such an improbable occasion? The underlying dispute dated back five years, to a community located roughly two hundred miles southwest of Seven Springs but whose reality stood much further removed still from the heights of Mount Kiscos rarefied airin the valleys of Pennsylvanias coal country. On October 22, 1935, in a small town suitably, if unimaginatively, called Minersville, a ten-year-old public school student named William Gobitis refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance along with his fifth-grade classmates. When Gobitiss teacher noticed that he had not joined the others in saluting the American flag, she marched right over and tried to force his arm into the proper position. But Gobitis managed to resist her entreaties, locking his arm into place, with his right hand clutching his pocket. In response, Minersvilles notoriously austere school superintendent, Charles Roudabush, contacted state education officials to ensure that he possessed the authority to expel Gobitis for this brazen act of insubordination. It made no difference to Roudabush that Gobitis attributed his unwillingness to recite the pledge to his faith as a Jehovahs Witness. As Gobitis subsequently explained in a letter to the school board, heand many other Witnesses, including his older sister Lillianinterpreted Exoduss prohibition on worshipping graven images to preclude participation in the ritual. I do not salute the flag not because I do not love my country, he explained, but [because] I love God more and I must obey His commandments. Despite the claim that the pledge requirement interfered with the Witnesses right to free exercise of religion protected by the Constitutions First Amendment, Roudabush nevertheless expelled the Gobitises, ordering them not to return until they were prepared to salute Old Glory.

Although two lower federal courts vindicated the familys claim, Justice Frankfurters opinion for the Court in Minersville School District v. Gobitis maintained that expelling Jehovahs Witnesses for refusing to recite the pledge did not violate the First Amendment. Portions of Justice Frankfurters opinion, in the 81 decision, extolled the unifying potential of requiring students around the nation to honor the American flag. We are dealing with an interest inferior to none in the hierarchy of legal values, Frankfurter proclaimed. National unity is the basis of national security.The flag is the symbol of our national unity, transcending all internal differences, however large, within the framework of the Constitution.Gobitis concluded, in sum, that judges should mind their own business, and leave educators to the business of molding American minds.

In Minersville, news of the Supreme Courts decision stunned the Gobitises. After hearing a radio broadcaster announce the adverse outcome, Lillian and her mother sat speechless in their kitchen for several minutes, paralyzed in disbelief. Their refusal to pledge had long ago transformed the Gobitis children into town pariahs, with peers flinging stones in their direction and sometimes shouting, Here comes Jehovah! Yet the Courts rejection hardly signaled the end of their ordeal. Shortly after the decision, a close friend called to warn the Gobitises that vigilantes planned to destroy their family-owned grocery store if they persisted in refusing to salute the flag. Fearing violence, the Gobitis parents hastily arranged for their children to relocate to a safe house, and contacted law enforcement to protect the familys modest business. Although a state police cruiser parked outside the store evidently deterred the plot for physical destruction, Minersvilles anti-Gobitis contingent soon alighted upon an alternate strategy of damaging the business: a boycott. This economic approach gained enough adherents to inflict serious financial distress on the Gobitises, who were forced to borrow money from relatives simply to pay their mortgage.