Supreme Court rules, 5-4: burning the flag is protected speech; 48 states' laws fall with Texas's

Five years after Gregory Lee Johnson pulled an American flag from a Dallas flagpole during the 1984 Republican National Convention and burned it in the street, his case reached the Supreme Court. On June 21, 1989, a 5-4 majority in Texas v. Johnson struck down Texas's flag desecration statute and, with it, similar laws in 48 other states, ruling that Johnson's act constituted protected symbolic speech under the First Amendment. Within 24 hours, the Senate passed a resolution of "profound disappointment" 97-3, and three-quarters of Americans told pollsters the Court had gotten it wrong…