Wisconsin V. Yoder Case Summary
Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972), is the case in which the United States Supreme
Court found that Amish children could not be placed under compulsory education past 8th grade, as it violated their fundamental right to freedom of religion. Three Amish students from three different families stopped attending New Glarus High
School in the New Glarus, Wisconsin school district at the end of the eighth grade, all due to their religious beliefs. The three families were represented by Jonas Yoder (one of the fathers involved in the case) when the case went to trial. They were convicted in the Green County
Court, and that ruling was upheld in the appeals court. Each defendant was fined the sum of $5 dollars. Thereafter the Wisconsin Supreme Court found in Yoder's …show more content…
However, a Lutheran minister took an interest in Amish legal difficulties from a religious freedom perspective and founded The National Committee For Amish Religious
Freedom (partly as a result of this case) and then provided them with legal counsel. The U. S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Yoder in a 7 to 0 decision, although
Justice William O. Douglas filed a partial dissent. The Court found that, "the evidence showed that the Amish provide continuing informal vocational education to their children designed to prepare them for life in the rural Amish community. The evidence also showed that respondents sincerely believed that high school attendance was contrary to the Amish religion and way of life and that they would endanger their own salvation and that of their children by complying with the law and that the sustained respondents' claim that application of the compulsory school- attendance law to them violated their rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First
Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment." The
Court found that Amish children could not be placed under compulsory education past 8th grade, as it violated their fundamental right to freedom of religion. Three Amish students from three different families stopped attending New Glarus High
School in the New Glarus, Wisconsin school district at the end of the eighth grade, all due to their religious beliefs. The three families were represented by Jonas Yoder (one of the fathers involved in the case) when the case went to trial. They were convicted in the Green County
Court, and that ruling was upheld in the appeals court. Each defendant was fined the sum of $5 dollars. Thereafter the Wisconsin Supreme Court found in Yoder's …show more content…
However, a Lutheran minister took an interest in Amish legal difficulties from a religious freedom perspective and founded The National Committee For Amish Religious
Freedom (partly as a result of this case) and then provided them with legal counsel. The U. S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Yoder in a 7 to 0 decision, although
Justice William O. Douglas filed a partial dissent. The Court found that, "the evidence showed that the Amish provide continuing informal vocational education to their children designed to prepare them for life in the rural Amish community. The evidence also showed that respondents sincerely believed that high school attendance was contrary to the Amish religion and way of life and that they would endanger their own salvation and that of their children by complying with the law and that the sustained respondents' claim that application of the compulsory school- attendance law to them violated their rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First
Amendment, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment." The