15 Case Summaries for ap gov't & Politics Contents

Dissent, in part
Justice Douglas joined the majority decision as applied to Mr. Yoder but disagreed with the majority’s ruling regarding some of the other families. Because the majority opinion focused only on the free exercise claims of the parents (the ones who were charged with a crime) and not the children, Justice Douglas would have sent the cases of the other children back to lower courts to learn whether or not the children wanted to attend school past eighth grade. Mr. Yoder’s daughter had testified in lower court that she wished to be educated at home.

Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972)
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Impact
Wisconsin v. Yoder demonstrates that the government’s interest in educating children is not absolute, and that it cannot overcome the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion in this situation. However, the Court also emphasized that the religion in this case was very unique because of how inseparable it is from the Amish way of life. The case is often said to be the basis for allowing students to be homeschooled instead of attending public or private schools. The majority opinion in
Wisconsin v. Yoder also provided some guidance for interpreting what kinds of religious beliefs are subject to the Free Exercise Clause. Importantly, the Court asked whether the religious beliefs involved in the case are sincerely held In answering this question in
Wisconsin vii Yoder,i the Court pointed out the long history of Amish religious practices. The Court expanded on this opinion in its 1990 decision in
Employment Division v. Smith. This case challenged a law criminalizing the use of peyote, a cactus used in some Native American rituals that produces psychedelic effects. In his majority opinion, Justice Scalia explained that the Court struck down the law in
Yoder because it involved hybrid claims. In other words, the respondent’s argument combined a Free Exercise argument with another claim (the right of parents to make choices about their child’s education. This was not the casein
Employment Division v. Smith, and the law was allowed to stand.