[9] Marie and Gathie Barnett (whose surname was spelled incorrectly in the court papers) were Jehovah's Witnesses attending Slip Hill Grade School near Charleston, who were instructed by their father not to salute the flag or recite the pledge.

[1] The Barnett's attorney, Hayden Covington, referenced the frequent persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses via statutes like that in West Virginia, and argued that the Gobitis precedent should be overturned because it enabled states to pass discriminatory laws.

It thus overruled its decision in Minersville School District v. Gobitis just three years earlier, finding that the flag salute was "a form of utterance" and "a primitive but effective means of communicating ideas", and therefore was speech to which the First Amendment applied.

Jackson wrote:[1] The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was 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.

"Love of country must spring from willing hearts and free minds, inspired by a fair administration of wise laws enacted by the people's elected representatives within the bounds of express constitutional prohibitions.

[1] Frankfurter's dissent was written from the perspective of his own Jewish roots, showing sympathy for other persecuted religious minorities but taking a impartial legal and unconstitutional view of the dispute and exercising judicial restraint.

[13] The Supreme Court's ruling on Barnette is considered a crucial precedent on the freedoms established by the Bill of Rights and the risk of governments restricting them via discriminatory laws.

[10][14] It is considered to be a formative precedent on not just freedom of religion;[15][16] but also on the matter of compelled speech, as governments attempt to coerce citizens into taking oaths when they would not do so under their own free will, particularly for religious reasons.