Wisconsin v. Yoder

Wisconsin v. Yoder
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 8, 1971 Decided May 15, 1972
Full case name	State of Wisconsin v. Jonas Yoder, Wallace Miller, and Adin Yutzy
Citations	406 U.S. 205 (more) 92 S. Ct. 1526; 32 L. Ed. 2d 15; 1972 U.S. LEXIS 144
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Defendants convicted, Green County, Wisconsin Circuit Court; reversed, 182 N.W.2d 539 (Wis. 1971); cert. granted, 402 U.S. 994 (1971).
Subsequent	None
Holding
The Wisconsin Compulsory School Attendance Law violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment because required attendance past the eighth grade interfered with the right of Amish parents to direct the religious upbringing of their children. Supreme Court of Wisconsin affirmed.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William O. Douglas · William J. Brennan Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell Jr. · William Rehnquist
Case opinions
Majority	Burger, joined by Brennan, Stewart, White, Marshall, Blackmun
Concurrence	Stewart, joined by Brennan
Concurrence	White, joined by Brennan, Stewart
Dissent	Douglas
Powell and Rehnquist took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I; Wis. Stat. § 118.15 (Wisconsin Compulsory School Attendance Law)

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Wisconsin v. Jonas 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. The parents' fundamental right to freedom of religion was determined to outweigh the state's interest in educating their children. The case is often cited as a basis for parents' right to educate their children outside of traditional private or public schools.^[1][2]

The Court affirmed the lower court ruling that, "The right to worship your God or to practice your religious beliefs are as important as the right to speak or print freely and may, to the individual involved, be more important."^[3]