Takeaway
In short, Pierce holds that the Fourteenth Amendment protects parents' liberty to choose private education for their children, while still permitting the State to reasonably regulate schools and require education.
Oregon voters adopted a Compulsory Education Act requiring parents and guardians to send children ages eight through sixteen to public school for the full school term, subject to limited exceptions. The Act was to take effect in 1926. Its practical effect would have been to eliminate attendance at private primary schools for most children within the covered age range.
The Society of Sisters, which operated Catholic schools and orphanages, and Hill Military Academy, a private military and college-preparatory school, alleged that the Act was already causing parents to withdraw children and decline future enrollment contracts. They contended that enforcement would destroy their businesses, impair their property, and unlawfully interfere with parents' ability to choose their children's education.
A three-judge federal district court, acting on undisputed allegations, issued preliminary injunctions against state officials who had announced their intention to enforce the Act. The court concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment protected parents' liberty to select reputable private schools and protected the schools' property interests against the resulting destruction of their businesses. Oregon officials appealed.
Issue #1
Whether Oregon's requirement that covered children attend public schools, rather than private schools, violated the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause.
Holding
Yes. The Act unreasonably interfered with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control.
Reasoning
The Court relied on Meyer v. Nebraska's understanding of Fourteenth Amendment liberty. That liberty includes more than freedom from physical restraint; it encompasses parents' authority to make important choices concerning their children's education and upbringing.
Oregon could require children to receive an education and could regulate schools in substantial ways. The State could inspect, supervise, and examine private schools; require attendance at some school; prescribe teachers' qualifications; require instruction in subjects essential to citizenship; and prohibit instruction harmful to the public welfare.
But the State's legitimate authority over education did not include a general power to standardize children by compelling them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The Court stated that a child is not "the mere creature of the State": those who nurture and direct a child have both the right and the high duty to prepare the child for further obligations.
Nothing in the record suggested that these private schools were unfit, harmful, or failing their pupils or the State. Nor was there an emergency justifying such an extraordinary measure. Because the Act effectively destroyed private primary education for normal children while lacking a reasonable relation to a permissible state objective, it violated the Due Process Clause.
Issue #2
Whether private-school corporations could challenge the Act even though a corporation cannot itself claim the personal liberty of parents and children.
Holding
Yes. Although the schools could not assert personal liberty as corporations, they could seek protection for their business and property interests threatened by the unconstitutional interference with their patrons' choices.
Reasoning
The Court accepted the premise that corporations do not possess the personal liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment in the same sense as natural persons. The schools therefore could not rest their claims solely on a corporate right to direct a child's education.
Nevertheless, the schools owned property, operated valuable businesses, and depended on continuing relationships with students and parents. The Act's compulsory-public-school requirement was already reducing enrollment and would, if enforced, seriously impair or destroy the schools' profitable operations and diminish the value of property devoted to school purposes.
Ordinarily, a business cannot prevent the State from exercising a proper regulatory power merely because regulation reduces its customer base. Here, however, the threatened loss of patronage resulted from arbitrary and unconstitutional state compulsion. That created a clear and immediate property interest sufficient to support injunctive relief.
Issue #3
Whether the schools' suits for injunctions were premature because the Act had not yet taken effect.
Holding
No. The threatened injury was immediate and real, and equity could prevent the irreparable harm before the effective date of the Act.
Reasoning
State and county officials had publicly declared that the Act was valid and that they intended to enforce it. Those declarations were already causing parents to withdraw students and to refuse long-term enrollment agreements necessary to the schools' operations.
The resulting harm was not a speculative future possibility. Enrollment, goodwill, income, and the value of specialized school property were already being damaged, and waiting until enforcement began would have allowed the injuries to become irreparable.
Courts of equity may prevent impending injury caused by unlawful official action. The Court therefore held that the preliminary injunctions were properly issued and affirmed the decrees below.