Pierce v. Society of Sisters

Origin of Compulsory Attendance Policies

Beginning with the common school crusade in the mid-1800s, states began encouraging the creation of systems of primary education; and by the 1880s, the authority of school systems to offer secondary education had been confirmed. Starting about the same time and continuing through the turn of the 20th century, a confluence of factors, both political and economic, contributed to the adoption of laws making schooling compulsory, for most, although not necessarily all, children. These factors included the influx of large numbers of non-western European immigrants with cultures, languages, and religions different from the then dominant population, which spawned laws and policies designed to ensure the assimilation and allegiance of these new arrivals to their adopted land. Compulsory education was one such law, as [Page 711]were laws dictating English as the language of instruction and the practice of patriotic exercises in the schools. A second factor contributing to the adoption of compulsory school attendance was the Industrial Revolution. It contributed to the exploitation of children as a cheap source of labor, which also resulted in unacceptably high unemployment rates among older and more costly workers, both of which augured for compulsory school attendance for the young.

The Controversy in Pierce: A Particularly Stringent State Policy

It was primarily the former of these two factors that, after a public referendum advocated for essentially by the Ku Klux Klan and the Scottish Rite Masons, led to the adoption in 1922 of a particularly stringent form of compulsory education law in the state of Washington. The Compulsory Education Act (1922) required every parent or guardian in charge of a child between 8 and 16 years of age to send their children to a public school, making attendance at a public school the exclusive means of satisfying the state's mandate that all children be educated through the eighth grade.

The operators of two private schools, one a parochial school owned by the Society of Sisters, and the other a private military school, Hill Academy, brought a federal court action challenging the Washington state law. The school owners variously contended that the compulsory education law threatened their business or property interests and conflicted with the liberty interests of parents to choose where their children would receive their education and religious training. The private schools also argued that the Act would infringe on the right of children to influence their parents' choice of schools and the right of teachers to pursue their profession.

The Supreme Court's Ruling and Rationale

The Supreme Court found this particular form of compulsory attendance law to be a violation of the substantive due process provision of the Fourteenth Amendment that bars states from depriving one of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. In this situation, the Court concluded that the Washington law unreasonably interfered with the liberty interest of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of their children and represented an arbitrary, unreasonable, and unlawful interference with the patrons of the school, resulting in the destruction of the business and property of the operators of the private schools. The Court consequently enjoined the enforcement of this particular compulsory education law.

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