“The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.” So thundered a unanimous US Supreme Court 100 years ago in the landmark decision of Pierce v. Society of Sisters on June 1, 1925.

At HSLDA, we are joining efforts to mark the centennial of this case because of the key legal principle it affirmed—that parents hold a fundamental right to direct the upbringing and education of their children.

What led to this decision? What were the ramifications? And what can we glean from the ruling to guide us today, as parental rights are under assault nationwide?

As I wrote in a law review article published last year, “Homeschooling in the United States: A Seismic Parental Rights Victory,” a robust view of parental rights had been the default position for millennia. But that began to be challenged in the early 1900s.

In Oregon, the Ku Klux Klan (and other anti-American organizations) championed a piece of legislation, the Compulsory Education Act of 1922, that prohibited children from attending private schools. Outside of several narrow exceptions, the law made failure to send a child to public school a criminal misdemeanor.

Two private schools filed suit: Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary and Hill Military Academy. These cases were consolidated, and the private schools won a major victory when a three-judge panel of the Oregon District Court issued an injunction against the law taking effect. The decision could have ended there, without a national ruling and the subsequent landmark precedent, but the Oregon government decided to appeal directly to the US Supreme Court.

That fateful decision would turn out to be a blessing for generations of families. For instead of issuing a tentative and limited opinion, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed a legal view that HSLDA still relies on in our work as homeschool advocates. The justices explained it this way:

“[W]e think it entirely plain that the [Oregon law] unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control. As often heretofore pointed out, rights guaranteed by the Constitution may not be abridged …. The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”

The powerful words of this broad ruling would go on to be used by homeschooling parents, their lawyers, freedom-loving legislators, and the modern homeschool pioneers to enshrine in state laws the liberty to homeschool we all enjoy today.