Pierce v. Society of Sisters

Summary

On 7 November 1922 Oregon voters adopted by initiative a Compulsory Education Act requiring every parent or guardian of a child between eight and sixteen to send the child to a public school, with narrow exceptions, beginning in September 1926. The measure was promoted by the Scottish Rite Masons and supported by the Ku Klux Klan, and Walter M. Pierce, elected governor the same day, endorsed it. Two private schools sued state and county officials to prevent enforcement: the Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, a Catholic teaching order incorporated in Oregon in 1880 that ran primary and high schools, junior colleges and orphanages, and the Hill Military Academy, a secular boys' school in Portland. Both showed that parents were already withdrawing children and refusing long-term contracts. The schools argued that the act destroyed their business and property without due process, that it violated the liberty of parents to choose schools offering appropriate mental and religious training, and that private schools were lawful and useful enterprises. The state answered that education of citizens is a public concern, that corporations cannot claim the liberty the Fourteenth Amendment protects, that a business has no vested right in its customers, and that the suits were premature because the act was not yet in force. A three-judge federal court granted preliminary injunctions, and on 1 June 1925 the Court unanimously affirmed. Justice McReynolds began by listing the powers the state undoubtedly holds: to regulate, inspect and supervise all schools, to require attendance at some school, to demand teachers of good character and patriotic disposition, and to require studies essential to citizenship. But under Meyer v. Nebraska the act unreasonably interfered with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of their children. The fundamental theory of liberty in the American Union, he wrote, excludes any general power to standardize children by requiring instruction from public teachers only, because the child is not the mere creature of the state. Though corporations cannot themselves claim that liberty, they could seek protection for their business and property from arbitrary interference with their patrons, and because the injury was present and real, the suits were not premature. The library text gives McReynolds's whole opinion, which is brief, without the original notes. Pierce has been cited ever since as the charter of private and religious schooling in the United States. Pius XI quoted its sentence about the child in the encyclical Divini Illius Magistri (1929), and the Court relied on it in Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) and Troxel v. Granville (2000). It has also been invoked in modern debates over school choice and home education, while later decisions such as Runyon v. McCrary (1976) held that private schools remain subject to general laws.

Plot or Argument

• The Oregon act and the two schools

  McReynolds describes the 1922 initiative, its exemptions and effective date, then the Society of Sisters, with its Catholic religious instruction, schools and orphanages, and the Hill Military Academy, both suffering withdrawals and lost contracts.

• The ruling of the district court

  The three-judge court had held that conducting schools is property, that parents may direct their children's education by choosing reputable teachers, and that enforcement would unlawfully destroy the schools' patronage.

• The powers the state retains

  No one questioned the state's authority to regulate, inspect and supervise schools, to require attendance, to set standards for teachers and to prescribe studies essential to citizenship.

• The liberty of parents

  Relying on Meyer, McReynolds holds that the act has no reasonable relation to a legitimate state purpose, that the state may not standardize its children through public teachers alone, and that those who nurture a child have the right and high duty to prepare him for his obligations.

• Corporations, customers and the timing of the suits

  The schools, as corporations, may protect their business and property against arbitrary interference with patrons, and because the threatened injury was immediate, equity could act before the law took effect.

Characters

• Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, appellee

  Catholic teaching order incorporated in Oregon in 1880 that operated schools and orphanages.

• Hill Military Academy, appellee

  Private military school for boys in Portland, organized in 1908, which brought a parallel suit.

• Governor Walter M. Pierce, appellant

  Governor of Oregon, named with the state and county law officers who intended to enforce the act.

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

  Applied the reasoning of his Meyer opinion to the right of parents to choose a school.

• William D. Guthrie, counsel for the Society of Sisters

  New York constitutional lawyer who argued the schools' case before the Court.

Lessons

• The child is not the mere creature of the state

  McReynolds's most famous sentence places the primary right and duty of upbringing with those who nurture the child. It does not deny the state any role in education; it denies the state a general power to standardize children by sending all of them to the same teachers.

  • What does McReynolds mean by standardizing children?
  • Why does he speak of a right coupled with a high duty?
  • What obligations might a parent be preparing a child to meet?

• Regulation versus monopoly

  Before announcing the holding, the opinion lists what the state may do: require attendance, inspect schools, set standards for teachers and require certain studies. The distinction between regulating private schools and abolishing them is the hinge of the case and remains central to debates over education law.

  • Which state powers over schools does McReynolds say are not in question?
  • Why does regulating all schools differ from requiring every child to attend a public school?
  • How much regulation of private schools is consistent with the parents' liberty Pierce protects?

• Property, religion and the shape of a case

  The Sisters sued as a corporation protecting its business and property, and the Court decided the case under the due process clause rather than the religion clauses, which had not yet been applied to the states. The religious character of the Sisters' schools was clear in the record, yet the legal argument turned on parental liberty and the value of a lawful enterprise.

  • Why did the schools claim injury to their business and property?
  • Why might the Court have decided the case without relying on freedom of religion?
  • Does it matter whether a right is protected as liberty, property or religious freedom?

Context

After the First World War many Americans sought to unify a population shaped by immigration, and public schooling was promoted as a means of forming common citizens. In Oregon a coalition including the Scottish Rite Masons and the Ku Klux Klan pressed for compulsory public schooling, and the measure drew strong opposition from Catholic, Lutheran, Adventist and Episcopal schools and from private academies. Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) had already held that states could not forbid teaching modern languages to young children.

Composition

The initiative passed in November 1922 by a margin of roughly 115,000 to 103,000 votes. The schools filed suit in 1923, a three-judge federal court in Portland enjoined enforcement in 1924, and the state appealed. The Court heard argument in March 1925 and announced its unanimous judgment on 1 June.

Reception

Catholic and other religious school leaders welcomed the decision as a guarantee of their schools' existence, and similar proposals in other states were abandoned. Legal scholars note that the opinion rests on the substantive due process reasoning of its era, a basis some later critics have questioned, while its principle of parental direction of education has been accepted across the Court's later decisions on schooling and family life.

Comparisons

• meyer-v-nebraska

  McReynolds's 1923 opinion supplied the doctrine that Pierce applied, moving from the choice of a subject to the choice of a school.

• wisconsin-v-yoder

  Chief Justice Burger relied on Pierce in exempting Amish children from schooling after the eighth grade, joining parental liberty with religious exercise.

• everson-v-board-of-education

  Two decades later the Court took for granted the existence of the parochial schools Pierce protected and asked whether a state could help pupils travel to them.

• zelman-v-simmons-harris

  The 2002 voucher case turned on the parental choice among public and private schools that Pierce had made a constitutional premise.

• the-republic

  Plato's guardians are educated by the city from birth, the model of state-directed upbringing that Pierce's view of the family rejects.

Quotes

For Students

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

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The exemptions the Oregon act allowed and the age range it covered.
• The description of the Society of Sisters' religious instruction and orphanages.
• The list of state powers over schools that no one disputed.
• The sentence about standardizing children.
• The answer to the argument that corporations cannot claim liberty.

Key terms and names

Initiative

A process by which citizens propose a law and adopt it by popular vote, without passage by the legislature.

Preliminary injunction

A court order forbidding an action while a lawsuit proceeds, granted to prevent irreparable injury.

Appellee

The party who prevailed below and defends the judgment on appeal; here, the two schools.

Equity

The branch of law that provides remedies such as injunctions when money damages would not be adequate.

Good will

The value of a business's reputation and established relations with customers or patrons.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What did the Oregon Compulsory Education Act require, and when was it to take effect?
2. Comprehension How were the Society of Sisters and the Hill Military Academy already being injured before the act took effect?
3. Interpretation How does McReynolds use Meyer v. Nebraska to decide this case?
4. Interpretation Why does the opinion list the state's legitimate powers over schools before announcing the holding?
5. Interpretation How can a corporation that cannot claim liberty still win a case about parents' liberty?
6. Big Question Does a free society need common schools to form common citizens, or does it need a variety of schools to remain free?

Faith Connections

• Proverbs 22:6 (Scripture)

  Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it, a charge addressed first to parents.

• Ephesians 6:4 (Scripture)

  Fathers are told to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, language close to McReynolds's phrase about those who nurture the child.

• Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri (1929) (Great Conversation)

  The encyclical on Christian education quotes this decision's sentence about the child and teaches that the family holds a right to educate prior to that of the state.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: McReynolds reasons that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the liberty of parents to direct their children's upbringing, that a state may limit that liberty only by measures reasonably related to a legitimate purpose, and that because the state may already regulate all schools, requiring attendance at public schools alone serves no purpose that regulation could not, and so is arbitrary.

Rhetorical device: concession before refutation. The opinion first grants a long list of state powers over schools (quote 0) and only then declares the limit, so that the holding appears modest and the act's overreach appears plain.

Debate: Resolved: that a state may require all children to attend public schools.

Memory Work

The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.

The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Explain the difference between regulating schools and requiring attendance at public schools only, as Pierce draws it, and evaluate whether that line protects both parents and the public.

Comparison with Wisconsin v. Yoder: Compare the parents' liberty recognized in Pierce with the religious liberty claimed by the Amish parents in Wisconsin v. Yoder, and explain how the later Court built on the earlier one.

Medical Lens

Pierce concerns parental choice of schools; the only health-related detail is the statute's exemption for children described as not normal, which the opinion mentions in passing.

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Divide the class into the Society of Sisters, the Hill Military Academy and the State of Oregon. Each side prepares a three-minute argument, and a bench of nine students must explain whether the two schools' claims differ in any way.

• Essay

  Write a pamphlet that an Oregon parent in 1922 might have distributed against the initiative, and a reply from a supporter of common public schooling, presenting each side in its own words.

• Dialogue

  Imagine a conversation between a Holy Names sister and a Hill Academy cadet's father in a Portland courtroom hallway in 1924, comparing why each school matters to them.

• Essay

  Apply the list of permissible state regulations in Pierce to a modern home school or private school, and explain which regulations Pierce would allow.

Further Reading

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

  Traces the Oregon campaign and the litigation alongside the language-law cases that preceded it.

• Divini Illius Magistri (On Christian Education), Pius XI

  The 1929 encyclical on Christian education that quotes the Court's sentence about the child and the state.

• Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville

  Tocqueville's account of American associations and the family helps explain the plural school system Pierce preserved.