Wisconsin v. Yoder
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| Wisconsin v. Yoder | ||||||||
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 Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued December 8, 1971 Decided May 15, 1972 |
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| Holding | ||||||||
| The Wisconsin Compulsory School Attendance Law violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment because required attendance past the eighth grade interfered with the right of Amish parents to direct the religious upbringing of their children. Supreme Court of Wisconsin affirmed. | ||||||||
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| Laws applied | ||||||||
| U.S. Const. amend. I; Wis. Stat. § 118.15 (Wisconsin Compulsory School Attendance Law) |
Wisconsin v. Yoder 406 U.S. 205 (1972) is the case in which the United States Supreme Court found that Amish children could not be placed under compulsory education past 8th grade, as it violated their fundamental right to freedom of religion.
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[edit] Background of the case
Three Amish students from three different families stopped attending New Glarus High School in the New Glarus, Wisconsin school district at the end of the eighth grade, all due to their religious beliefs. The three families were represented by Jonas Yoder (one of the fathers involved in the case) when the case went to trial. They were convicted in the Green County Court, and that ruling was upheld in the appeals court. Each defendant was fined the sum of $5. Thereafter the Wisconsin Supreme Court found in Yoder's favor. At this point Wisconsin appealed that ruling in the U. S. Supreme Court.
The Amish did not believe in going to court to settle disputes but instead follow the biblical command to "turn the other cheek." Thus, the Amish are at a disadvantage when it comes to defending themselves in courts or before legislative committees. However, a Lutheran minister took an interest in Amish legal difficulties from a religious freedom perspective and founded The National Committee For Amish Religious Freedom (partly as a result of this case) and then provided them with legal counsel.
[edit] The Court's decision
The U. S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Yoder in a 6 to 1 decision. The Court found that,
"The evidence showed that the Amish provide continuing informal vocational education to their children designed to prepare them for life in the rural Amish community. The evidence also showed that respondents sincerely believed that high school attendance was contrary to the Amish religion and way of life and that they would endanger their own salvation and that of their children by complying with the law."
And,
"...sustained respondents' claim that application of the compulsory school-attendance law to them violated their rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment."
The Court further observed,
“They object to the high school, and higher education generally, because the values they teach [406 U.S. 205, 211] are in marked variance with Amish values and the Amish way of life; they view secondary school education as an impermissible exposure of their children to a "worldly" influence in conflict with their beliefs. The high school tends to emphasize intellectual and scientific accomplishments, self-distinction, competitiveness, worldly success, and social life with other students. Amish society emphasizes informal learning-through-doing; a life of "goodness," rather than a life of intellect; wisdom, rather than technical knowledge; community welfare, rather than competition; and separation from, rather than integration with, contemporary worldly society.”
Also,
“Formal high school education beyond the eighth grade is contrary to Amish beliefs, not only because it places Amish children in an environment hostile to Amish beliefs with increasing emphasis on competition in class work and sports and with pressure to conform to the styles, manners, and ways of the peer group, but also because it takes them away from their community, physically and emotionally, during the crucial and formative adolescent period of life. During this period, the children must acquire Amish attitudes favoring manual work and self-reliance and the specific skills needed to perform the adult role of an Amish farmer or housewife. They must learn to enjoy physical labor. Once a child has learned basic reading, writing, and elementary mathematics, these traits, skills, and attitudes admittedly fall within the category of those best learned through example and "doing" rather than in a classroom. And, at this time in life, the Amish child must also grow in his faith and his relationship to the Amish community if he is to be prepared to accept the heavy obligations imposed by adult baptism. In short, high school attendance with teachers who are not of the Amish faith - and may even be hostile to it - interposes a serious barrier to the integration of the Amish child into [406 U.S. 205, 212] the Amish religious community. Dr. John Hostetler, one of the experts on Amish society, testified that the modern high school is not equipped, in curriculum or social environment, to impart the values promoted by Amish society.”
[edit] The dissenting opinion
Justice William O. Douglas wrote "I agree with the Court that the religious scruples of the Amish are opposed to the education of their children beyond the grade schools, yet I disagree with the Court's conclusion that the matter is within the dispensation of parents alone. The Court's analysis assumes that the only interests at stake in the case are those of the Amish parents on the one hand, and those of the State on the other. The difficulty with this approach is that, despite the Court's claim, the parents are seeking to vindicate not only their own free exercise claims, but also those of their high-school-age children....
On this important and vital matter of education, I think the children should be entitled to be heard. While the parents, absent dissent, normally speak for the entire family, the education of the child is a matter on which the child will often have decided views. He may want to be a pianist or an astronaut or an oceanographer. To do so he will have to break from the Amish tradition.
It is the future of the student, not the future of the parents, that is imperiled by today's decision. If a parent keeps his child out of school beyond the grade school, then the child will be forever barred from entry into the new and amazing world of diversity that we have today. The child may decide that that is the preferred course, or he may rebel. It is the student's judgment, not his parents', that is essential if we are to give full meaning to what we have said about the Bill of Rights and of the right of students to be masters of their own destiny. If he is harnessed to the Amish way of life by those in authority over him and if his education is truncated, his entire life may be stunted and deformed. The child, therefore, should be given an opportunity to be heard before the State gives the exemption which we honor today."
[edit] The Court's Decision Legacy
"Since Wisconsin v. Yoder, all states must grant the Old Order Amish the right to establish their own schools (should they choose) or to withdraw from public institutions after completing eighth grade. In some communities Amish parents have continued to send their children to public elementary schools even after Wisconsin v. Yoder. In most places tensions eased considerably after the Supreme Court ruling, although certain difficulties remained for those Amish living in Nebraska." [1]
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ NOLT, S. M. A History of the Amish, Intercourse:Good Books, 1992, p. 263
[edit] External links
- Wisconsin v. Yoder ET AL.. The Summary of the Court's opinions. Retrieved on June 10, 2006.
- The Principle of Nonresistance - written in 1927 by John Horsch, a Mennonite church leader.
- Hershberger, Guy F., Ernst Crous and John R. Burkholder. "Nonresistance." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1989. Retrieved on January 2, 2007.
- Hershberger, Guy F. and Timothy Stoltzfus Jost. "Lawsuits." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1989.. In depth write-up of the Anabaptist position on legal procedures harmonized with the principles of love, nonresistance, and reconciliation. Retrieved on December 29, 2006.
- Reverend William C. Lindholm. U.S. Supreme Court Case: Is There Religious Freedom in America -- for the Amish?. A discussion of Amish rights and freedoms in relation to Wisconsin v. Yoder. Retrieved on June 10, 2006.
- National Committee For Amish Religious Freedom. homepage of a non-Amish group whose mission statement is to "defend and preserve the religious freedom of the Old Order Amish religion in the United States". Retrieved on June 10, 2006.
- Review Essay: Shawn Francis Peters, The Yoder Case: Religious Freedom, Education, and Parental Rights. A review by Michelle D. Deardorff, from Jackson State University, of Shawn Francis Peter's book on the case. Retrieved on June 10, 2006.
- Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972), Supreme Court of the United States. In depth write-up of the Supreme Court Case. Retrieved on June 10, 2006.
