The Court ruled that public schools could compel students—in this case, Jehovah's Witnesses—to salute the American flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance despite the students' religious objections to these practices.

[2] Subsequent cases have applied a lower standard of review to generally applicable laws when evaluating free exercise claims;[3] Justice Antonin Scalia cited Frankfurter's Gobitis opinion at least three times in Employment Division v. Smith (1990).

During World War I, many more states instituted mandatory flag pledges with only a few dissents recorded by the American Civil Liberties Union.

On June 3, 1935, Watch Tower Society president J. F. Rutherford was interviewed at a Witness convention about "the flag salute by children in school".

[6] In September in Lynn, Massachusetts, a third-grader and a Jehovah's Witness named Carleton Nichols[7] refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and was expelled from school.

The national leadership subsequently decided to make an issue of the forced pledges and asked people to stand up for their right to religious freedom.

Gobitas was inspired by stories of other Witnesses who challenged the system and suffered for it, and decided to make a stand himself and instructed his children not to pledge allegiance when at school.

During the trial, school superintendent Roudabush displayed contempt for the beliefs of the children, stating that he felt they had been "indoctrinated" and that the existence of even a few dissenters would be "demoralizing", leading to widespread disregard for the flag and American values.

Four months later District Judge Albert B. Maris found that the board's requirement that the children salute the flag was an unconstitutional violation of their free exercise of religious beliefs.

Joseph Rutherford, president of the Watch Tower Society, and himself a lawyer, took over the defense, assisted by the new head of the religious group's Legal Department, Hayden Covington.

To deny the legislature the right to select appropriate means for its attainment presents a totally different order of problem from that of the propriety of subordinating the possible ugliness of littered streets to the free expression opinion through handbills.

Weighing the circumstances in this case, he argued that the social need for conformity with the requirement was greater than the individual liberty claims of Jehovah's Witnesses.

The flag, the Court found, was an important symbol of national unity and could be a part of legislative initiatives designed "to promote in the minds of children who attend the common schools an attachment to the institutions of their country.

"[21] First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt appealed publicly for calm, while newspaper editorials and the American legal community condemned the Gobitis decision as a blow to liberty.

[26] The active persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses abated somewhat, although thousands were arrested during World War II for seeking religious exemption from military service.

[27] Subsequent cases have applied a lower standard of review to generally applicable laws when evaluating free exercise claims;[28] Justice Antonin Scalia cited Frankfurter's Gobitis opinion at least three times in Employment Division v. Smith (1990).