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Timestamp: 2019-04-18 20:52:49+00:00

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1 From Texas v. Johnson This selection consists of two opinions (both excerpted here) from the famous US Supreme Court flag-burning case of 1989, in which a split court (5 4) held that burning an American flag as political protest is a form of symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment. Five years earlier, Gregory Lee Johnson, a Communist activist, had burned a flag in front of the Dallas City Hall as a protest against Reagan administration policies. Johnson was tried and convicted under a Texas law outlawing flag desecration. The court overturned the conviction, and in so doing, invalidated similar laws in force in 48 of the 50 states. Justice William Brennan ( ) delivered the opinion of the court, emphasizing the supremacy of freedom of expression. In one of his most famous dissents, Chief Justice William Rehnquist ( ) offered a passionate defense of the law, emphasizing the unique meaning of the flag. 1 Page 1 Review both opinions carefully, and try to summarize the argument of each. Justice Brennan treats the flag as one of a number of designated symbols, whose use in expression the government is improperly trying to regulate. Chief Justice Rehnquist denies that the flag is a merely designated symbol, but rather the visible symbol embodying our Nation, for which our history has produced uniquely deep awe and respect. Whose view seems to you more correct? Justice Brennan compares Johnson s burning of the flag with the British bombardment of the Star-Spangled Banner at Fort McHenry, and claims that it is the flag s and the nation s resilience to such attacks that the court is upholding. What do you think of this argument? Is he right in suggesting that the flag s cherished place in our community will be strengthened, not weakened by the court s opinion? Chief Justice Rehnquist says that the flag is not simply another idea or point of view competing for recognition in the marketplace of ideas, but a symbol that millions and millions of Americans regard... with an almost mystical reverence, regardless of their personal beliefs. And he insists that flag-burning is not so much political speech as it is an inarticulate grunt or roar that... is most likely to be indulged in not to express 1 The Supreme Court s decision provoked immediate public controversy. The US Congress passed a statute, the 1989 Flag Protection Act, making it a federal crime to desecrate the flag. That law was struck down by the same five-person majority of justices in United States v. Eichman (in an opinion also written by Justice Brennan).
5 the written or spoken word or a short cut from mind to mind only in one direction. We would be permitting a State to prescribe what shall be orthodox by saying that one may burn the flag to convey one s attitude toward it and its referents only if one does not endanger the flag s representation of nationhood and national unity.... To conclude that the government may permit designated symbols to be used to communicate only a limited set of messages would be to enter territory having no discernible or defensible boundaries. Could the government, on this theory, prohibit the burning of state flags? Of copies of the Presidential seal? Of the Constitution? In evaluating these choices under the First Amendment, how would we decide which symbols were sufficiently special to warrant this unique status? To do so, we would be forced to consult our own political preferences, and impose them on the citizenry, in the very way that the First Amendment forbids us to do. See Carey v. Brown, 447 U.S., at Page 5 There is, moreover, no indication either in the text of the Constitution or in our cases interpreting it that a separate juridical category exists for the American flag alone. Indeed, we would not be surprised to learn that the persons who framed our Constitution and wrote the Amendment that we now construe were not known for their reverence for the Union Jack. The First Amendment does not guarantee that other concepts virtually sacred to our Nation as a whole such as the principle that discrimination on the basis of race is odious and destructive will go unquestioned in the marketplace of ideas. See Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969). We decline, therefore, to create for the flag an exception to the joust of principles protected by the First Amendment. It is not the State s ends, but its means, to which we object. It cannot be gainsaid that there is a special place reserved for the flag in this Nation, and thus we do not doubt that the government has a legitimate interest in making efforts to preserv[e] the national flag as an unalloyed symbol of our country. Spence, 418 U.S., at 412. We reject the suggestion, urged at oral argument by counsel for Johnson, that the government lacks any state interest whatsoever in regulating the manner in which the flag may be displayed. Congress has, for example, enacted precatory 2 regulations describing the proper treatment of the flag, see 36 U.S.C , and we cast no doubt on the legitimacy of its interest in making such recommendations. To say that the government has an interest in encouraging proper treatment of the flag, however, is not to say that it 2 Of, relating to, or expressing a wish or request.
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