Wisconsin v. Yoder

In Wisconsin v. Yoder (406 U.S. 205), decided on May 15, 1972, the United States Supreme Court, by a verdict of 7-0, upheld the judgement of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in voiding the convictions of the Amish plaintiffs (Yoder, et al) under the state's compulsory school attendance law. The convictions of the plaintiffs were voided under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The case had come to the U.S. Court as a result of a Wisconsin compulsory school attendance law which required parents to enroll their children in public or private schools until at least the age of 16. The defendents, who were members of an Old Order Amish community, refused to send their 14 and 15 year old children to the consolidated public schools, or to otherwise provide education, in satisfaction of the statutes, for them after they had completed the eighth grade.

At lower court levels, the Amishmen were convicted of violating the statute and fined. They claimed that their rights under the free exercise of religion clause (First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution) were violated by the statute and appealed the conviction. Their appeal was heard by the state Supreme Court, where they were upheld. The State of Wisconsin then took the matter to the United States Supreme Court.

Sociological background - the movement towards "consolidation"

The one-room schoolhouse of rural America (affectionately known to many Americans as the "little red schoolhouse" though, in truth, it was more often white) continues to be a staple of American nostalgia. At one time in the early decades of the 20th century, one-fourth of all rural pupils in the United States attended one of nearly 188,000 such schools.However, throughout the 20th century, and, in fact, beginning even before that, the one-room schoolhouse was largely phased out in favor of "consolidated" schools until at present, there are very few such schools remaining.

In the one-room school, a number of pupils (usually a few dozen at most) in grades 1 through 8 were all taught together by a single teacher. By consolidating several such one-room schools into one, larger school, a number of practical and educational benefits could be achieved, or so it was alleged by the proponents of consolidation.

These alleged benefits included the possibility of a more diversified curriculum, the ability of the teacher to devote more time to the pupils of each grade level, lower financial costs, and the extension of quality education to rural students.

But while many Americans lamented the loss of the one-room country schoolhouse with its nostalgic recollections of a simpler time, for one group, it meant more than that. The Amish, who have always taken a skeptical attitude towards progress and modernity generally, considered that the intrusion of the consolidated public schools and the extension of the minimum age for compulsory education which went with it, threatened their very existence as a religious community and a people.