Pierce v. Society of Sisters - Research Paper Example

? Pierce v. Society of Sisters It was In November, 1922, of Oregon approved the Compulsory Education Act that required that all children from eight to the age of sixteen attend 'a public schooling for the time a public school will be held throughout the present year' in the district of residence of the child; failure to which was declared as a misdemeanor. This was a comparatively a unique law in America, being passed basically due to the exertions of the Oregon Scottish Rite Masons and the Ku Klux Klan. It occurred as testimony to the post-World War I uncertainties about immigrants and Bolshevism. In conjuction to the anti-Catholicism, followers disputed that separating students into private and public school for the different in religions was likely to lead to a dissension and the discord - a fear recognized in part in Northern Ireland today. The plaintiff, that is the Society of Sisters, an Oregon corporation prearranged in 1880 and devoted in part to the private education, following tenets of Roman Catholic Church. They come up with a suit challenging that the law: ...is in conflicts with the right of parents select schools wher their children would receive an appropriate religious training and mental, the childs right was also influence by the parents' choice of school, the right to select schools and teachers therein to participate in a beneficial profession or business and is therefore objectionable to Constitution and void. Court Decision Is it poible for the state to demand that all children attent public school? In an undisputed decision, Supreme Court ruled on June 1, 1925 in contradiction of the State and in favor of parents in this case. According to the Court, this law violated Due Process Clause of Fourteenth Amendment: ...the Act of 1922 irrationally affects the freedom of parents and guardians to direct the education of children and upbringing of their children under their control. As frequently heretofore pointed out, the rights guaranteed by Constitution might not be curtailed by legislation that has no sensible relation to some purpose within the capability of a state. Fundamental theory of liberty that all governments recognized by this union, repose rejects any overall power of state to regulate its children by compelling them to admit instruction from only public teachers. Surpeme Court did this, though, it specified that a State has authority to require children to join some school and power to control schools to see to it that they are doing a good job at their education. Following this way, it confirmed the interest government has in mingling the young to citizenship, but repudiates nevertheless that the State has a domination in this project. These poored cold water on some statesas they were worried about the impact of the “foreign” and immigrant’s values well-thought-out public schools as a source of help; therefore these states enlisted laws intentionally to use these schools in order to promote common American culture. And on November 7 in 1922, Oregon electorates passed an ingenuity that rewritten Oregon Law Section 5259, which was the Compulsory Education Act. This ingenuity was mainly eliminate parochial schools. Accordingly, it led to a severe loss of revenue for private schools like the Non-sectarian and the Hill military academia! In conjunction, parents began withdrawing their children away from these schools in the untruthful believe that these will soon end. These laws were mainly aimed at eradicating Catholics schools. The Compulsory Education Act, preceding amendments, had demanded that all Oregon children between the age of eight to sixteen years to attend the public school. This was with exceptions. 1. Those mentally retarded/ physically unable to attend school 2. Those who had just graduated from their eighth grade 3. Those living more than a quantified distance by road from a nearby school 4. Those children thare are undergoing home-schooling or those that are tutored 5. Those that are attending a state identified private school Sisters of Holy Names and the Hill Military Academy distinctly sued Walter Pierce, who was the governor of Oregon, with Isaac H. Van Winkle, who was the state attorney general, and district attorney of Multnomah County, Stanley Myers, This two cases, heard and the decided altogether, were biased along somewhat different lines. Sisters' case alleged that: is in conflicts with the right of parents select schools where their children would receive an appropriate religious training and mental, the childs right was also influence by the parents' choice of school, the right to select schools and teachers therein to participate in a beneficial profession or business and is therefore objectionable to Constitution and void. Sisters' case rested only the secondarily on the assertion that its business could suffer resulting from the law. Meaning that, its main claim was that State of Oregon was sacrilegious exact First Amendment rights (like the right to without restrictions practice one's religion). Its case alleged only secondarily which the law had infringed on the Fourteenth Amendment rights concerning the protection of possessions (such as, the school's contracts with families). Hill Military Academy, on the other hand, projected this as their allegation: .... owns significant real and private property, some beneficial for school purposes. The business and the incident good will are highlyvalued. So to conduct its dealings, long time treaties must be initiated for teachers, pupils, supplies, and equipment. The Appellants, law officers of state and the county, have openly proclaimed that the Act of November 7, 1922, is legal and have acknowledged their intent to enforce it. Following the reason of the ruling and warning of implementation appellee's business is getting devastated and its property value getting depreciated .... The Academy's bill stated the preceding facts and then alleged that the challenged act breaches the business's rights guaranteed by Fourteenth Amendment . These schools ended up winning their case just before a three-judge panel of Oregon District Court, that granted a ban against the Act. Defendants had to appeal their case straight to the Supreme Court of United States. This case was heard by the court on 16 and 17 March 1925. Appellants' lawyers, such as Willis S. Moore for state and the district attorneys, and Albert H. Putney and George E. Chamberlain, for governor, claimed that the state had a superseding interest to mastermind and control providers of education to children of the Oregon. Amongst the went so far as to call the Oregonian students as " State's children". They resisted that the State's attention in overseeing the education of their citizens and the future voters was boundless that it superseded the parents' right to select a provider of education for their children, and the right of children to effect their parent’s in this decision. According to the appellees' assertions that their loss in business trespassed on the Fourteenth Amendment rights, appellants' lawyers contradicted that since appellees were organizations, not just individuals, Fourteenth Amendment could not directly apply for them. In conjunction, they declared, the revenues of a business were not property, and therefore did not fall under the due process clause of Fourteenth Amendment. Lastly, they claimed that because the law was not reserved to take effect til September of the next year, the suits were therefore brought prematurely—to defend against a conceivable coming danger, not to correct a current problem. Appellees responded that they were not challenging the right of state to screen their children's education, only its right to complete control of their selection of the the educational system: No query is brought up concerning power of state sensibly to control all schools, to examine, supervise and scrutinize them, their teachers and pupils; to want that all children of appropriate age join some school, and that teachers must be of good moral character and very patriotic nature, and that certain studies basically essential to good citizenship has to be taught, and that nothing has to be taught which is obviously unwelcoming to the public welfare. In Addition, they answered that though the state had a commanding interest in children's education, interest was not that strong as to necessitate the state's order of an educational choice of that sort. Excepting a great crisis, they claimed, state had no right to demand their children to join, or not to ajoin, any specific sort of school. the Court mull over for around 10 weeks before delivering their decision by 1 June 1925. The Court universally supported the lower court's decision, and injunction counter to the amended Act. Associate such as Justice James Clark McReynolds transcribed the court's opinion. Stating that children were not just the sheer creature[s] of state and that, by its nature, the customary American understanding of liberty prohibited the state from compelling students to agree to take instruction from public schools only. He also stated that this obligation belonged to child's parents or his/her guardians, and that the ability to make such choice was "liberty" defended by the Fourteenth Amendment. Following this discussion of whether to contract or not schools' contracts with the parents instituted property protected by Fourteenth Amendment, McReynolds settled that because the schools were organizations, they were not precisely entitled to such like protections. Though, he continued, ……they got a business and properties for which they demand defense. These are in danger with the devastation through the unjustified compulsion which the appellants are exercising over present and potential patrons of the schools. And the court has gone along the way to protect against loss threatened by such like action… McReynolds agreed that businesses are not entitled to defense against losses of business subsequent to exercise of the proper power of the state. Though, by citing a number of pertinent business and the property law cases, he decided that the passage of the revised Act was not " a proper power" in that sence, and it constituted unlawful intrusion with freedom of both families and schools In response to claims by appellants that the suits were untimely, trying to prevent rather than to correct a problem, Justice McReynolds merely referred them to the evidence available by the appellees indicating that the schools were already suffering from the falling enrollments. This verdict marked the commencement of a time of more liberal clarification of the due process clause ; precisely, the Court acknowledged consciously that it had allowed Fourteenth Amendment to apply only on entities other than individuals, and had to broadened the list of liberties or the rights which it defended. Over the course of the following half century, that list will be extended enabling it to include the rights to marital privacy, to have children, to marry, to have an abortion, and many others. Since the statute collide with down by Pierce was chiefly intended to eradicate parochial schools, Justice Anthony Kennedy suggested that Pierce could have been decided on the First Amendment grounds. And Indeed, as stated, that was the mainly legal argument progressive by the lawyers on behalf of the Sisters. Though, when Pierce was decided, First Amendment had not yet been believed applicable alongside the states. This event happened a mere seven days later. IMPACTS Society today, teacher, as parents, and students there is still exist the issue as to what type of schooling is most suitable for our kids. Do we select public schooling or do we select private schooling? Ever since the beginning of time there exist a prejudice toward culture and religion. In 1922, Oregon school system seized part in a decision aimed at Americanizing their schools. Groupings like the Scottish Rite Masons and the Ku Klux Klan organized a system demanding all children between 8 and 16 of age to attend public schools only . Exclusive of the physically unable, those who lived several miles away from the nearest road, and those already completed their eighth grade. To impose this law guardians and parents who failed to send their children to public schools were subjected to a fine of around one hundred dollars and or imprisonment of up to 30 days in jail. This system appeared highly irrational to the Society of Sisters. So Why should parents not have the authority to select where and how their children is educated. This also appeared to go in contrast to the 14th Amendment, that stated that all people are demanded for equal protection and equal opportunity. Though, the ruling was soon defied by the Society of Sisters Mary, and an order of the Catholic nuns, and private military school. These private schools decided to teach orphans and young men between 5 and 21 years of age. Not only did they fear the harm which would come up from the law but also the likely extinction of their schools consequently. Court ruled on Oregon was not able to constitutionally force all school students to join public schools. Decided by an common vote, on June 1, 1925 by McReynolds wrote the Court's opinion. State law which required all the children in their first eight grades to join public rather than the private or the parochial schools violated 14th Amendment, due process assurance of personal liberty. Understood in this liberty is the right of parents to select kind of education best for their children. Court also felt that the law was interfered with judgment of the parents and guardians as far as how and what they wanted children to study and be introduced to. The right of parents to bring up their children comprised the right to send them children to the private or the parochial schools, but this was another 15 years before courts openly applied 1st Amendment ban on governmental meddling with nil exercise of religion to states. Though, the government might still control attendance of our kids to school. There are only a few limitations as to the type of institutions of education we choose for our kids. Deprived of the varied school systems made by our nation maybe we would not have been the constructive country which we are today. Decades to come, this functional due process cognitive would spawn penalties that undermined most of the traditional standards held dear by supporters of religion. Whilst the instant result of Pierce was to reserve the rights of parents to send their kids to private religious schools they wanted , Pierce soon was quoted in support of the far less traditional rights of abortion, contraception, and sodomy. The three “rights” might now be deeply perplexing to the order of the nuns who took this case, but to the maj who hold the same values and care concerning religious freedom. Finally, these restrictions on the states reach have got incorporation and application to the states via Fourteenth Amendment's the Due Process Clause.  Statute restricts marital right to privacy and relationship between couples and their respective physicians. Concurring: The, court ought not focus on specific provisions of that Bill of Rights, instead rely exclusively on Due Process Clause in order to find whether this law violates basic values which are "contained in the concept of the ordered liberty." Concurring: Ninth Amendment is no an exclusively independent source of human rights, nevertheless it does recommend that the list of human rights in first eight Amendments may not be exhaustive.  Right of privacy is very "fundamental," and the entire state may not justify its interference based on some thin ideas that the purpose of that law is mainly protecting marital fidelity. Court's decision interferes less with the state's proper regulation of matters such as fornication or adultery. In conclusion, the law, as was written, is the overbroad and reaches beyond legitimate scope of the state’s power; it ought to be invalidated. In light of a research, carried out by a group of lawyers, in the United States, in the future, laws governing justice and equity might prevail meaning that, whether mentally retarded, physically challenged, will have an opportunity to study in any school whether state owned, or private schools as it not only do these students suffer isolation, they also fail to enjoy the benefits of socializing with other students. In conjunction to the above parents are taking their kids to school of their choice, such advances are positive and gives a good gesture for the future generations. Works Cited Abrams, Paula. The Cross Purposes of the Pierce v. Society of Sisters and Struggle obove Compulsory Public Education. The University of Michigan Press.2009. Print Alley, Robert. The Constitution & Religion: Leading Supreme Court Cases on Church & State. the Amherst, New York: The Prometheus Books. 1999. Print. Bernstein, David. The Rehabilitating Lochner &Defending the Individual Rights from Progressive Reform. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2011. Print. Donald, Kommers. Freedom &Education: Pierce V. Society of Sisters Reconsidered. London: University of Notre Dame Law School, 1978. Print. Howard, Paul. Cross-Border Reflections, Parents’ have Right to Direct Their Children’s’ Education Under U.S. and Canadian Constitutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.2006. Print Read More