Constitutional Law (Rearing of the Youth)

Pierce v. Society of Sisters

FACTS:
In 1922 Oregon amended its compulsory attendance statute to
require that children between 8 and 16 years old be sent to public
schools in the districts where they lived. Two organizations operating
private schools in Oregon, the Society of Sisters of the Holy Names of
Jesus and Mary and the Hill Military Academy, The Sisters' case rested
only secondarily on the assertion that their business would suffer
based on the law. That is, its primary allegation was that the State of
Oregon was violating specific First Amendment rights (such as the right
to freely practice one's religion). Their case alleged only secondarily
that the law infringed on Fourteenth Amendment rights regarding
protection of property (namely, the school's contracts with the
families).Walter M. Pierce, the governor of Oregon, was named as a
respondent. A federal district court subsequently entered judgment for
the schools, the appellants' lawyers argued that the state had an
overriding interest to oversee and control the providers of education to
the children of Oregon. One of them even went so far as to call
Oregonian students "the State's children". They contended that the
State's interest in overseeing the education of citizens and future
voters was so great that it overrode the parents' right to choose a
provider of education for their child, and the right of the child to
influence the parent.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the compulsory attendance statute is
unconstitutional for overriding the right of parents right to choose a
provider of education for their child, and the right of the children to
influence the parent?
HELD:
YES. He stated that children were not "the mere creature[s] of
the state" (268 U.S. 510, 535), and that, by its very nature, the
traditional American understanding of the term liberty prevented the
state from forcing students to accept instruction only from public
schools. He stated that this responsibility belonged to the child's
parents or guardians, and that the ability to make such a choice was a
"liberty" protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.