Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

After the ratification of the Constitution, more than 100 years passed before the absence of explicit protection for parental rights created a conflict. Join Mike Farris as he examines that first battle, today on Home School Heartbeat.

Michael Farris:
The Founders made no mention of parental rights in the Constitution, but this doesn't mean that they were opposed to these rights. In the Founders' day, it was unimaginable that the national and state governments they were creating would usurp parental authority to raise their children. None of them could have ever envisioned a form of government which pitted fit parents against the state in a battle over the right to make decisions concerning their own children.

It was some time before a constitutional clash occurred between parents and the government over the right to raise children. This happened in the 1920s when Oregon legislators enacted a law banning all private education and mandating that children be educated in government schools.

A Catholic school in Oregon challenged the statute, and its plea went all the way to the Supreme Court in the case of Pierce v. Society of Sisters in 1925. In its ruling, the Court announced a guiding principle of American jurisprudence: parents held the right to direct the education and upbringing of their children.

This ruling was an important weapon in the later fight to gain legal recognition of homeschooling as a form of education. Join us tomorrow as we look at some of the less favorable implications of this decision.

I'm Mike Farris.