October Term 1924 · Decided June 1, 1925

Pierce v.
Society of Sisters

Nos. 583, 584 · 268 U.S. 510 (1925) · Read the full case on Oyez ↗

The Holding

A unanimous Supreme Court ruled, 9–0, that Oregon's law requiring all children to attend public school violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Parents have a constitutional right to direct the upbringing and education of their children, including the right to choose private schools.

In plain terms

In 1922, Oregon voters approved a ballot initiative that would have required every child between 8 and 16 to attend a public school. The law was promoted by the Ku Klux Klan and other anti-Catholic groups, with the explicit purpose of forcing children out of Catholic parochial schools and into government-run schools where they would receive uniform "American" instruction. Two private schools sued before the law could take effect: the Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, which ran Catholic schools throughout Oregon, and Hill Military Academy, a nonsectarian prep school. The Supreme Court unanimously struck the law down. Parents have a fundamental constitutional right to direct their children's education. The state cannot force every family into a single, government-approved mold. The case is one hundred years old, but its central principle continues to shape every legal interaction between the state and the family.

Section 01

The Question Presented

What was
at stake

On November 7, 1922, Oregon voters approved an initiative known as the Compulsory Education Act. The law required every parent or guardian of a child between eight and sixteen to send the child to a public school in the district where they lived. There were narrow exceptions for children educated at home, children with certain disabilities, and a few other edge cases. The practical effect of the law would have been to eliminate private and parochial schools as a meaningful option for Oregon families. The law was scheduled to take effect September 1, 1926.

Two private schools brought lawsuits in federal District Court before that date. The Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary was a Roman Catholic religious order that had run primary schools in Oregon since 1880. Hill Military Academy was a nonsectarian private school that prepared boys for college and military service. Both faced the same problem: if the law took effect, their schools would be destroyed.

The legal question for the Supreme Court was the question that runs through every case in this series about parents and the state. Does the right of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children fall within the protected liberty of the Fourteenth Amendment? And if so, can the state require every child to attend a state-run school, eliminating the family's choice of private education?

Historical Context

This is a case that cannot be honestly told without naming who passed the Oregon law. The Compulsory Education Act was promoted and organized primarily by the Ku Klux Klan, which was at its national peak of membership and influence in the early 1920s, and by the Oregon Scottish Rite Masons. The campaign was explicitly anti-Catholic. The stated goal was to drive parochial schools out of business and force Catholic children, immigrant children, and other religious minorities into state-run schools where they would receive uniform "American" instruction.

The Court did not decide the case on religious freedom grounds. In 1925, the Free Exercise Clause had not yet been applied against the states. So McReynolds wrote about parental liberty under the Due Process Clause, not religious bigotry directly. But the legal doctrine the Court built has continued to protect religious minorities, immigrant families, homeschoolers, and any family that does not fit a state-preferred default. The decision is one of the clearest examples in American constitutional law of a court using individual rights doctrine to check majoritarian bigotry.

Section 02

The Bench

Who joined
which side

Justice McReynolds wrote for a unanimous Court. The Taft Court in 1925 was a conservative Court, deeply committed to substantive due process protection of liberty. That same doctrinal commitment, applied to family decisions rather than business decisions, produced the result here.

McReynolds had also written two years earlier, which struck down a Nebraska law banning German-language instruction in schools. The two cases together formed the doctrinal foundation that every later parental rights case has rested on.

The Taft Court · Vote 9–0

Taft
Joined
Holmes
Joined
Van Devanter
Joined
McReynolds
Author
Brandeis
Joined
Sutherland
Joined
Butler
Joined
Sanford
Joined
Stone
Joined
Unanimous (9)
✦ Opinion author

The child is not the mere creature of the state.

Justice McReynolds, for the Court

Section 03

The Reasoning

Two
questions

Because the Court was unanimous, there is no dissent to lay against the majority. The Court had two distinct questions to answer. First, does the Constitution protect a parent's right to choose private education for their child? Second, does the Constitution protect the property interests of the schools themselves? The Court answered yes to both.

The Parental Rights Holding

The Constitution protects the liberty of parents to direct their children's upbringing and education.

  1. The Due Process Clause protects more than physical restraint. By 1925, the Court had developed substantive due process, under which "liberty" in the Fourteenth Amendment included freedom to make certain fundamental decisions about one's own life. Pierce applied this framework to family decisions.
  2. Parental decisions about education are protected liberty. The Court drew on Meyer v. Nebraska, decided two years earlier. If the state cannot tell parents what language their children can learn, it also cannot tell them they must send their children to a state-run school.
  3. The state cannot "standardize" its children. McReynolds was direct: the state's fundamental theory of liberty "excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only."
  4. The state's interest in education does not override parental choice. The Court accepted Oregon had a legitimate interest in ensuring children received an adequate education. But that interest did not require the elimination of private schools. What it could not do was forbid private education entirely.
  5. The child is not the creature of the state. The most quoted line of the opinion. Parents have not just a right but a duty to direct their children's upbringing. The state can support that work but cannot displace it.
The Property Rights Holding

The schools themselves have a constitutionally protected interest in their established businesses.

  1. The schools had standing to sue. Both schools could bring the lawsuit because the Oregon law would destroy their businesses. The Court did not require parents to be the plaintiffs.
  2. The schools had a property interest in their going concerns. The schools had built up established businesses with reputations, enrollment, employees, buildings, and customer relationships. That accumulated value was a form of property the Constitution recognized.
  3. The Oregon law would have destroyed those interests. The Compulsory Education Act would have made the schools' continued operation legally impossible. That kind of total destruction of an established business was an unconstitutional deprivation of property without due process.
  4. The property and liberty holdings reinforced each other. Modern lawyers mostly remember the parental rights holding. But the property rights holding explains how the schools could be plaintiffs in their own right and was important in 1925 on its own terms.
Section 04

What the State Can Still Do

Limits on
the holding

Pierce is often described as a sweeping protection of private education. The actual holding is narrower. The Court was clear that states retain substantial authority to regulate education, including private schools. What the state cannot do is eliminate private schools entirely.

What Pierce Protects

The Right to Choose

Parental liberty

Parents have a constitutionally protected right to choose private or religious schools instead of public schools. The state cannot eliminate that choice by requiring exclusive public school attendance.

This protection extends to the schools themselves, which have a property interest in operating as going concerns. Laws that would effectively destroy private education are unconstitutional even if they apply to schools rather than directly to parents.

Pierce is the doctrinal foundation of homeschooling rights, religious school protection, and the modern view that parents are the primary decisionmakers in their children's education.

What Pierce Permits

Reasonable Regulation

State authority preserved

The state may require all children to attend some school. Compulsory attendance laws are constitutional. What the state cannot do is require attendance at a state-run school specifically.

The state may regulate private schools in numerous ways: requiring teacher qualifications, setting curriculum standards, enforcing health and safety codes, requiring attendance reporting, and inspecting facilities. McReynolds was explicit that "no question is raised concerning the power of the State reasonably to regulate all schools."

The boundary between Pierce's protection and the state's regulatory power has been worked out in dozens of subsequent cases involving homeschooling, religious schools, and curriculum mandates.

Section 05

What the Court Did Not Decide

Read this
carefully

Pierce protects a real but limited right. Reading it as a sweeping protection of all parental choices about children is a misread. The Court preserved state authority to regulate education in significant ways, and a century of follow-up cases has worked out where the line falls in various contexts.

Common misreads to avoid

A century later, the doctrine is well-developed. The case itself is narrower than its reputation.

  • It did not establish a right to public funding of private education. Parents have the right to choose private school. They do not have a constitutional right to have the state pay for it.
  • It did not establish a freestanding right to homeschool. Pierce protects the right to attend private school. Whether parents have a constitutional right to educate their children themselves, outside any organized school, is a question Pierce did not decide.
  • It did not exempt private schools from all regulation. Teacher certification, curriculum standards, attendance requirements, and health and safety codes are all permitted. The line is at total elimination, not at all regulation.
  • It did not address religious accommodations. The Court did not decide the case on religious freedom grounds because the Free Exercise Clause had not yet been incorporated against the states. Religious exemption questions came later, most prominently in Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972).
  • It did not give parents unlimited authority over their children. Pierce protects parental choice in education, but the state retains authority to act in cases of abuse, neglect, or serious harm. The case sits in tension with, rather than displacing, the state's parens patriae power.
  • It did not address the rights of children themselves. Pierce treats children as the subject of parental decisions, not as independent rights-holders. Modern doctrine, particularly in cases involving older children and contested family decisions, has developed in directions Pierce did not anticipate.
Section 06

How It Got Here

The path
to SCOTUS

The case followed an unusual path. It was decided before the Oregon law ever took effect, on a preliminary injunction issued by a federal District Court. The schools moved immediately, won at the trial level, and Oregon appealed directly to the Supreme Court. The whole process from ballot initiative to final decision took roughly two and a half years.

November 7, 1922 · Oregon
Voters approve the Compulsory Education Act
An Oregon ballot initiative, promoted by the Ku Klux Klan and the Oregon Scottish Rite Masons, passes by a narrow margin. The law requires all children between 8 and 16 to attend public school, with a few narrow exceptions. The effective date is set for September 1, 1926.
1923–1924 · District of Oregon
Society of Sisters and Hill Military Academy file suit
The two private schools file separate lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, seeking to enjoin enforcement of the law before it takes effect.
1924 · District Court
District Court grants preliminary injunctions
The federal district court grants preliminary injunctions in both cases, holding the schools are likely to succeed on their constitutional claims and that allowing the law to take effect would cause irreparable harm. Oregon appeals directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
March 16–17, 1925 · Supreme Court
Oral argument over two days
The case is argued over two days. Amicus briefs are filed by the Episcopal Church, the Seventh-day Adventists, and the American Jewish Committee, all opposing the Oregon law.
June 1, 1925 · Supreme Court of the United States
SCOTUS affirms, 9–0
Justice McReynolds writes for a unanimous Court. The Oregon Compulsory Education Act is held unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The preliminary injunctions are affirmed. The law never takes effect.
Section 07

For Practice

The social
work bridge

Pierce is not a case workers cite in daily practice. It is the doctrinal ancestor of the cases workers do cite. Understanding what Pierce did and why helps workers see the structure of the law that governs every family they serve.

Foundation Lens

Every parental rights case starts here.

Pierce and Meyer v. Nebraska are the constitutional foundation of every later case in this series that addresses parental rights. Stanley v. Illinois, Santosky v. Kramer, Troxel v. Granville, and the procedural protections of DeShaney all rest on the Pierce principle that parental decisions about children are constitutionally protected liberty.

Majoritarian Limits Lens

Popular laws can still violate the Constitution.

The Oregon law was passed by a majority of voters. The Court still struck it down. This matters for workers who encounter state policies that may have broad public support but constitutional vulnerabilities. The Constitution is a check on majoritarian decision-making, and parental rights are one of the areas where that check has the most force.

Family Diversity Lens

The doctrine protects whoever does not fit the default.

The Oregon law targeted Catholics and immigrants. The doctrine that struck it down now protects homeschooling families, religious minorities, immigrant families, LGBTQ+ families, and any family whose choices differ from a state-preferred default. Workers serving families outside the cultural majority are operating in a legal landscape that Pierce helped create.

Section 08

A Working Vocabulary

Legal
terms

Pierce uses some of the oldest vocabulary in the constitutional protection of family decisions. The terms below appear repeatedly in the opinion and throughout the doctrine that has grown from it.

Frequently Used in This Opinion
Substantive due process

The doctrine that the word "liberty" in the Fourteenth Amendment protects certain fundamental rights from government interference, regardless of the procedures used. Pierce and Meyer v. Nebraska are foundational substantive due process cases for family rights.

Parental rights doctrine

The body of constitutional law protecting the right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children. Pierce, together with Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), established the modern foundation of this doctrine.

Compulsory education law

A statute requiring children of a specified age range to attend school. Compulsory education laws are constitutional generally; Pierce held only that the state cannot require attendance at a specifically public school.

Parochial school

A private school operated by a religious institution, particularly the Catholic Church. The Society of Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary operated parochial schools throughout Oregon and was one of the two plaintiffs in this case.

Going concern

An established business operating with continuity, employees, customers, and accumulated value. The Court recognized that private schools, as going concerns, had a constitutionally protected property interest that the Oregon law would have unlawfully destroyed.

Preliminary injunction

A court order temporarily preventing a party from taking a particular action while a lawsuit proceeds. The schools obtained preliminary injunctions in District Court before the Oregon law could take effect, and the Supreme Court affirmed those injunctions.