Exactly 100 years ago, on Feb. 23, 1923, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Meyer v. Nebraska, which established the precedent that parental rights are a fundamental right. It was this decision that allowed the United States to establish itself as a beacon of freedom in a world that too often lets governments trample families .
As so many turning points in history do, the Meyer case started out with war. Just nine years before the decision, anarchist Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg — the first event in a chain of tragedies that plunged the nations into World War I.
As America mobilized for war, intense patriotism was the order of the day. Anti-German sentiment sprang out of that. William G. Ross, in his 1988 University of Cincinnati Law Review article titled “A Judicial Janus: Meyer v. Nebraska in Historical Perspective,” explained:
The advent of war, however, precipitated a paroxysm of hostility toward German ethnicity. Although there was no reason to question the loyalty of most Americans of German ancestry, the government's crusade to inspire ‘100% Americanism’ and to portray the German nation as anti-democratic and barbarous inevitably inspired suspicion of German-Americans who retained distinctly Germanic customs. … The widespread use of the German language was the most visible aspect of German ethnicity and it became the primary target of anti-German hysteria. … Twenty-three states enacted statutes that imposed restrictions upon instruction in foreign languages, especially the German language.
Nebraska was one of those 23 states, which led to the arrest of Lutheran school teacher Robert Meyer at Zion Parochial School. His crime? Providing religious instruction, in German, during recess.
Arthur Mullen was the lawyer who represented Meyer in his lawsuit and who, on this very day 100 years ago, argued before the nine justices of the Supreme Court. As he described it afterward, here is what happened :
To little blue-eyed boys and flaxen-haired girls [Meyer] was recounting, as teachers have recounted for two thousand years, the tale of the bondage in Egypt, of the boy sold into slavery by his brothers and destined to become their savior in a time of their greatest need. A shadow [of the county attorney] fell across the sunlight of the doorway.
‘I had my choice,’ [Meyer] told me afterward in that quiet voice which was more impressive than any shouting. ‘I knew that, if I changed into the English language, he would say nothing. If I went on in German, he would come in, and arrest me. I told myself that I must not flinch. And I did not flinch. I went on in German.’
‘Why?’ I asked him.
He widened his gaze a little. ‘It was my duty,’ he said simply. ‘I am not a pastor in my church. I am a teacher, but I have the same duty to uphold my religion. Teaching the children the religion of their fathers in the language of their fathers is part of that religion.’
Meyer was arrested, convicted after a trial, and fined $25. And to the everlasting gratefulness of future generations and parents today, he appealed. He lost before the Nebraska Supreme Court and then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
And on June 4, 1923, the Supreme Court overruled Meyer’s conviction in a 7-2 decision and struck down Nebraska’s law. The court’s decision was the first in a line of cases protecting parental rights as one of the highest rights in our constitutional system.
The Supreme Court held in its decision that “it is the natural duty of the parent to give his children education suitable to their station in life.” This reasoning hearkened back to the Declaration of Independence , in which our founders recognized two crucial ideas: 1) our rights come not from government, but from “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God,” and 2) that “all men are created equal [and] that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
Then, the Supreme Court went further in its decision, stating, “The individual has certain fundamental rights which must be respected. ... [The individual] cannot be coerced by methods which conflict with the Constitution — a desirable end cannot be promoted by prohibited means.”
And then, the court did something spectacular: It went back to the family as the building block of society. As classically trained people, the justices on the court rejected the Greek philosopher Plato’s musing that “children are to be common” as contrary to our own nation’s founding:
Although such measures have been deliberately approved by men of great genius, their ideas touching the relation between individual and State were wholly different from those upon which our institutions rest, and it hardly will be affirmed that any legislature could impose such restrictions upon the people of a State without doing violence to both letter and spirit of the Constitution.
So when Plato-like moderns argue that “ kids belong to whole communities ,” or that homeschooling keeps children “ from contributing positively to a democratic society ,” or that the only reason that “ parent-child relationships exist is because the State confers legal parenthood ,” remember that the Supreme Court rejected that ancient and wrong argument 100 years ago.
Today, we still have our work cut out for us. Parental rights remain under attack. But I have no doubt parents will prevail, thanks, in large part, to the courage of one man: Lutheran school teacher Robert Meyer.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM RESTORING AMERICAWilliam A. Estrada is a husband, father, attorney, and the president of ParentalRights.org and the Parental Rights Foundation , two nationwide nonprofit groups headquartered in Loudoun County, Virginia, that have advocated at the local, state, and federal levels for the last 15 years to protect children by empowering parents.