Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf
Page Number: 13

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

7 

Opinion of the Court 

274 U. S. 357, 375 (1927) (Brandeis, J., concurring); see also
12 The Papers of James Madison 193–194 (C. Hobson & R. 
Rutland eds. 1979).  An end because the freedom to think 
and speak is among our inalienable human rights.  See, e.g., 
4 Annals of Cong. 934 (1794) (Rep. Madison).  A means be-
cause the freedom of thought and speech is “indispensable
to the discovery and spread of political truth.”  Whitney, 274 
U. S.,  at  375  (Brandeis,  J.,  concurring).  By  allowing  all
views to flourish, the framers understood, we may test and 
improve our own thinking both as individuals and as a Na-
tion.  For all these reasons, “[i]f there is any fixed star in
our constitutional constellation,” West Virginia Bd. of Ed. 
v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 642 (1943), it is the principle that 
the  government  may  not  interfere  with  “an  uninhibited 
marketplace of ideas,” McCullen v. Coakley, 573 U. S. 464, 
476 (2014) (internal quotation marks omitted).

From  time  to  time,  governments  in  this  country  have
sought  to  test  these  foundational  principles.    In  Barnette, 
for example, the Court faced an effort by the State of West 
Virginia to force schoolchildren to salute the Nation’s flag
and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  If the students refused, 
the State threatened to expel them and fine or jail their par-
ents.  Some families objected on the ground that the State 
sought  to  compel  their  children  to  express  views  at  odds 
with their faith as Jehovah’s Witnesses.  When the dispute 
arrived here, this Court offered a firm response.  In seeking 
to compel students to salute the flag and recite a pledge, the 
Court  held,  state  authorities  had  “transcend[ed]  constitu-
tional limitations on their powers.”  319 U. S., at 642.  Their 
dictates “invade[d] the sphere of intellect and spirit which 
it is the purpose of the First Amendment . . . to reserve from 
all official control.”  Ibid. 

A similar story unfolded in Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, 
Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U. S. 557 
(1995).  There, veterans organizing a St. Patrick’s Day pa-
rade  in  Boston  refused  to  include a  group  of gay,  lesbian,