This week the Daily Dawg highlights a clash of interests that is becoming more prominent these days. The parent wants to know what is going on with the child at school. The child wants to keep certain things from the parent. How does the school navigate these parent-child conflicts?
Just to lay the groundwork for this, we will start with a couple of Golden Oldies. The cases remain relevant because 1) they were decided by the Supreme Court; and 2) they are frequently cited in support of the parental right to direct the upbringing of the child.
The first case arose in a climate of fear over immigration and the influence of other cultures and languages in America. Sound familiar? Shortly after World War I the State of Nebraska passed a law making it a crime to teach a child in a modern language other than English until the child had completed 8th grade. Instruction in Latin, Greek and Hebrew was permitted, but until you got to high school you could not be taught in a language that people actually use, other than English. Thus high school kids could study French, German and Spanish, but no instruction in these languages was permitted prior to that.
Mr. Meyer was convicted of teaching a ten year old to read German in Zion Parochial School. He appealed the conviction all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court held that the Nebraska statute unreasonably infringed on the liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. The Court held that Mr. Meyer’s right “to teach and the right of parents to engage him so to instruct their children” were “within the liberty of the [14th] Amendment.”
It’s a short opinion and it focuses more on Mr. Meyer’s right to make a living than the right of the parents to make educational decisions. But the one line that is repeatedly cited is this one:
Evidently the legislature has attempted materially to interfere with the calling of modern language teachers, with the opportunities of pupils to acquire knowledge, and with the power of parents to control the education of their own. (Emphasis added).
The next time the issue came up it was about the most anti-choice school law ever passed. We’ll talk about that one on Wednesday.
Today’s case is Meyer v. Nebraska, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1923. We found it at 262 U.S. 390.
DAWG BONE: YOU CAN BET THEY HAD NO IDEA THIS WOULD COME UP LATER IN CASES INVOLVING PREGNANT STUDENTS AND OTHER HOT BUTTON ISSUES.
Tomorrow: Toolbox Tuesday dissects the word “unilateral.”