PIERCE V. SOCIETY OF SISTERS

PIERCE V. SOCIETY OF SISTERS, 268 U.S. 510 (1925). Also known as the Oregon Parochial School Case, Pierce v. Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary was decided in 1925 by the Supreme Court. At issue was the Oregon Compulsory Education Act of 1922, a voter initiative mandating public school attendance for children eight through sixteen. Though never enforced, the law threatened to destroy existing private schools, which were deemed a threat to community morals and

safety. Like many education regulations of the period, it was at least in part the product of anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant sentiment.

Pierce was brought by the Society of Sisters and the Hill Military Academy against Governor Walter M. Pierce. The Court was unsympathetic to the law, as was the district court that had previously considered it. Justice McReynolds, in a unanimous decision, found it in violation of economic and noneconomic liberties guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment (property owners' right to be free of unreasonable power; parents' right to make educational decisions for their children). This was one of the first state police power regulations invalidated for violating a noneconomic constitutional guarantee. It has since become a symbol of so-called substantive due process jurisprudence. In the early 2000s the case was cited approvingly in privacy, parental rights, and free exercise decisions; advocates of school choice found it useful when defending their position.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Carter, Stephen L. "Parents, Religion, and Schools: Reflections on Pierce, Seventy Years Later." Seton Hall Law Review 27 (1997): 1194.

Fraser, James W. Between Church and State: Religion and Public Education in a Multicultural America. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.

Kimberly A.Hendrickson

See alsoEducation, Parental Choice in .