Meyer v. Nebraska

Summary

In April 1919, months after the armistice ending the First World War, Nebraska enacted a statute forbidding any teacher in a private, parochial or public school to teach any subject in a language other than English, and forbidding instruction in foreign languages as such until a pupil had passed the eighth grade. Iowa, Ohio and other states passed similar measures. On 25 May 1920 Robert T. Meyer, a teacher at the Zion Parochial School maintained by a Lutheran congregation in Hamilton County, was found teaching ten-year-old Raymond Parpart to read German from a collection of Bible stories. He was convicted and fined, and the Supreme Court of Nebraska affirmed, holding that the law was a valid exercise of the police power meant to make English the mother tongue of every child reared in the state. Meyer's side argued that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the liberty of a teacher to pursue a lawful calling and of parents to choose instruction for their children, and that knowledge of German threatened no one. Nebraska answered that the state has broad power to shape the education of future citizens, that communities living in foreign languages after the war were slow to assimilate, and that a child's limited school hours could reasonably be reserved for English. On 4 June 1923 the Court reversed, seven to two. Justice McReynolds wrote that the liberty guaranteed by the due process clause includes not only freedom from bodily restraint but the right to engage in common occupations, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, and to worship according to conscience. Education, he observed, had always been prized in America, and parents have a natural duty to educate their children. Since mere knowledge of German could not reasonably be considered injurious, the statute interfered with the teacher's calling, the pupils' opportunities and the parents' authority. He acknowledged the legislature's desire for a common people with American ideals, and recalled that Plato and the Spartans had proposed placing children under the state's guardianship, but held that such ideas differ wholly from those on which American institutions rest. The state might compel attendance, require instruction in English and set the curriculum of its own schools; it could not, in peacetime, forbid modern languages altogether. Justices Holmes and Sutherland dissented. Holmes's opinion, filed in the companion case Bartels v. Iowa, argued that reasonable people could think it desirable for all citizens to speak a common tongue and that the question should be left to the states; it is not part of the library text, which contains McReynolds's opinion without its notes. Meyer became a foundation for Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) and for later decisions recognizing the rights of parents, including Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) and Troxel v. Granville (2000), and its list of liberties was cited in later due process cases on marriage and family life.

Plot or Argument

• The charge and the state court's reasons

  McReynolds sets out the information against Meyer, the text of the 1919 statute and long excerpts from the Nebraska Supreme Court, which explained that children reared in their parents' language would think in it and absorb ideas foreign to the country's interests.

• The meaning of liberty

  The opinion lists the liberties the due process clause has been held to include, from contract and occupation to knowledge, marriage, home, children and worship, and states that courts must review whether a legislature's exercise of the police power is arbitrary.

• Education and the duty of parents

  Quoting the Northwest Ordinance's praise of religion, morality and knowledge, McReynolds holds that teaching is an honorable calling and that parents' right to engage a teacher of German for their children falls within the protected liberty.

• Plato, Sparta and the American plan

  Acknowledging the state's wish for a united citizenry after the war, McReynolds contrasts Plato's common rearing of children and Sparta's barracks with the relation between individual and state on which American institutions rest.

• What the state may and may not do

  The state may compel attendance, regulate all schools, require instruction in English and prescribe its own curriculum. But no emergency justified forbidding modern languages, and the law was arbitrary as applied; nor could it be defended as protecting children's health.

Characters

• Robert T. Meyer, plaintiff in error

  Teacher at a Lutheran parochial school in Hamilton County, Nebraska, convicted for teaching reading in German.

• Raymond Parpart, pupil

  Ten-year-old child named in the charge, who had not yet passed the eighth grade.

• Justice James C. McReynolds, author of the majority opinion

  Wrote that the liberty of the Fourteenth Amendment includes acquiring knowledge and bringing up children.

• Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., dissenter

  Explained in the companion Iowa case that he would leave the language question to the states; joined by Sutherland.

• Arthur F. Mullen, counsel for Meyer

  Omaha lawyer who represented Meyer and the Lutheran schools.

Lessons

• What liberty includes

  McReynolds's catalogue of protected liberties joins economic freedoms with the freedom to learn, to marry, to raise children and to worship. The list gave later courts a starting point for asking which unwritten liberties the due process clause protects, and it is still debated whether such a list is best found in history, reason or the text.

  • Which liberties does McReynolds name, and which of them are written in the Constitution?
  • Why does he say that the legislature's judgment about the police power is not final?
  • How should judges decide which liberties are fundamental?

• Parents, children and the state

  The opinion describes the education of children as both a right and a natural duty of parents, enforced by compulsory attendance laws. The state's interest in forming citizens is real, but McReynolds holds that it does not extend to forbidding parents to have their children taught a modern language.

  • What powers over schools does McReynolds say the state clearly has?
  • Why does he distinguish between requiring English and forbidding German?
  • Where should the line fall between a parent's authority and the state's interest in education?

• A common language and a free people

  Nebraska wanted every child to grow up with English as a mother tongue, and McReynolds called that aim easy to appreciate after the war. His answer was that a desirable end cannot be promoted by prohibited means. Holmes, in the companion case, thought the means reasonable enough to leave to the legislature.

  • What reasons did the Nebraska court give for the statute?
  • Why does McReynolds say the protection of the Constitution extends to those who speak other languages?
  • Can a free society promote a common language without forbidding others?

• Plato's city and the American republic

  McReynolds quotes Plato's Republic on the common rearing of children and describes Sparta's military education, noting that great thinkers approved such schemes. He uses them as a contrast to show that American institutions rest on a different relation between individual, family and state.

  • Why does McReynolds bring Plato and Sparta into a case about a Nebraska schoolroom?
  • What does the contrast suggest about the place of the family in the American constitutional order?

Context

During and after the First World War, suspicion of German-speaking communities ran high. German was dropped from many schools, some towns renamed streets, and several states restricted foreign-language instruction. Nebraska had large German, Czech and Scandinavian populations and many church schools, chiefly Lutheran and Catholic, that taught partly in the language of the congregation.

Composition

The Nebraska legislature passed the act, known after its sponsor as the Siman Act, in April 1919 as an emergency measure. Lutheran synods challenged it, and the Nebraska Supreme Court construed it in 1921 to exempt ancient languages such as Latin, Greek and Hebrew. The Court heard Meyer together with cases from Iowa and Ohio in February 1923 and decided them on 4 June.

Reception

The decision invalidated similar statutes in other states and encouraged challenges to the Oregon school law two years later. Scholars have pointed out that McReynolds, generally a defender of economic liberty, here applied the same due process reasoning to family and education. Advocates of parental rights and of religious schools have relied on the case ever since, while critics of substantive due process question its method even when they accept its result.

Comparisons

• pierce-v-society-of-sisters

  Two years later McReynolds relied on Meyer to hold that Oregon could not require all children to attend public schools.

• wisconsin-v-yoder

  Burger's 1972 opinion for Amish parents drew on the parental liberty recognized in Meyer and added the protection of the free exercise clause.

• the-republic

  McReynolds quotes Plato's proposal that the guardians' children be reared in common as an example of the view of individual and state that American institutions reject.

• rush-essays-on-education-in-a-republic

  Benjamin Rush urged a uniform system of education to form republican citizens, an early statement of the civic aim Nebraska invoked.

• west-virginia-v-barnette

  In 1943 the Court again limited the means a state may use in schools to build national unity, this time in the context of the flag salute.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The Nebraska Supreme Court's explanation of why the legislature wanted English as every child's mother tongue.
• McReynolds's long list of liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
• The quotation from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
• The passage on Plato and Sparta.
• The powers over schools that the Court says the state retains.

Key terms and names

Plaintiff in error

The party who brings a case to a higher court by writ of error; here, the convicted teacher.

Police power

A state's general authority to legislate for health, safety, morals and welfare.

Parochial school

A school maintained by a church congregation or parish.

Information

A formal criminal charge filed by a prosecutor rather than by a grand jury.

Substantive due process

The doctrine that the due process clause protects certain liberties from arbitrary laws, not only from unfair procedures.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What did the Nebraska statute forbid, and what exactly was Meyer charged with doing?
2. Comprehension Which languages did the Nebraska Supreme Court say the statute did not cover?
3. Comprehension What three groups does McReynolds say the law interfered with?
4. Interpretation How does McReynolds use the Northwest Ordinance to support his conclusion?
5. Interpretation Why does McReynolds mention the recent war, and how does that affect his reasoning about emergencies?
6. Big Question Who has the first responsibility for a child's education: parents, church or state, and how should conflicts among them be settled?

Faith Connections

• Deuteronomy 6:6-7 (Scripture)

  Israel is commanded to teach God's words diligently to their children, at home and on the way, placing instruction first in the hands of parents.

• Acts 2:6-11 (Scripture)

  At Pentecost each listener heard the apostles in his own language, a passage often read as honoring the many tongues in which faith is learned.

• Martin Luther, To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany (1524) (Great Conversation)

  Luther urged the founding of schools and the study of languages so that Scripture could be read and understood, a tradition the Lutheran congregation in this case carried on.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: McReynolds reasons that the Fourteenth Amendment's liberty includes the teacher's calling, the pupil's acquisition of knowledge and the parents' control of education; that a state may restrict such liberty only by measures reasonably related to a legitimate end; and that forbidding the teaching of a modern language to young children in peacetime bears no such relation.

Rhetorical device: historical contrast. McReynolds sets Plato's common nursery and Sparta's barracks beside the American relation of individual and state, showing by contrast what the Nebraska law would move toward.

Debate: Resolved: that parents have a constitutional right to direct the subjects their children study in school.

Memory Work

The protection of the Constitution extends to all, to those who speak other languages as well as to those born with English on the tongue.

Perhaps it would be highly advantageous if all had ready understanding of our ordinary speech, but this cannot be coerced by methods which conflict with the Constitution — a desirable end cannot be promoted by prohibited means.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Explain how McReynolds balances Nebraska's interest in a common language against the liberty of teachers and parents, and evaluate whether he gives the state's concerns a fair hearing.

Comparison with Pierce v. Society of Sisters: Compare Meyer with Pierce v. Society of Sisters, two years later, and explain how McReynolds extends the principle of parental liberty from the choice of subjects to the choice of schools.

Medical Lens

The opinion touches health only to dismiss the suggestion that the statute protected children's minds from overwork, observing that early language study does not injure the ordinary child.

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Reenact the 1923 argument: one team represents Robert Meyer and the Lutheran parents, another represents Nebraska; a bench of nine decides, and two students write short dissents in the spirit of Holmes.

• Dialogue

  Write a conversation in 1920 between Raymond Parpart's parents and the county attorney about why the boy was learning German from Bible stories.

• Essay

  Read the passage from Plato that McReynolds quotes, then explain in a page how the American view of family and state differs from the one Plato proposes.

• Essay

  Draft a statute that a state could pass to encourage every child to master English without violating the rule of Meyer, and explain why it would survive.

Further Reading

• Forging New Freedoms: Nativism, Education, and the Constitution, 1917-1927, William G. Ross

  Legal history of the language laws, Meyer and Pierce, and the litigants and lawyers behind them.

• Bonds of Loyalty: German-Americans and World War I, Frederick C. Luebke

  History of German-American communities during the war, including the pressures that produced the language laws.

• Germans in the New World: Essays in the History of Immigration, Frederick C. Luebke

  Includes Luebke's essay on the legal campaign against foreign-language schools after the war.