U.S. Supreme Court Case: Is There Religious Freedom in America -- for the Amish?

The Wisconsin Supreme Court last January in a landmark decision overturned the arrests of the Amish saying that "no liberty is more important ... than religious liberty," and the Amish "will not be required to attend school beyond the eighth grade" because the state had shown no "compelling state interest" that would justify the overriding of the freedom of religion guarantee of the Constitution of the United States.

Moreover, the court said that Amish "education produces as good a product as two additional years of compulsory high school."

Compulsory education laws in Wisconsin require attendance to age sixteen.

The State of Wisconsin claiming that religious liberty is no defense against compulsory education laws appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and this court heard oral arguments on Wednesday, December 8, 1971.

The U.S. Supreme Court will probably issue this term their ruling on whether the Amish can be forced into high school, which is against their religious beliefs and which will apparently result in the destruction of their church-community. The questions involved in the Amish case are significant ones. May the government require a religious group to perform an action that they believe will send them to hell? Specifically, is the government's policy required a certain type of secondary schooling so important that it can command that policy against the religious conscience of the Amish young people and their parents to produce the effect of destroying their church?

The Old Order Amish -- a minority religious group known for their shunning of modern conveniences and the driving of horses and buggies, who were among America's earliest settlers -- are supported in the high court by many of America's religious denominations.

Filing friend of the court briefs in support of the Amish were the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U. S. A. representing thirty-three Protestant and Orthodox denomination, the Seventh Day Adventist Church, the Mennonite Central Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the synagogue Council of America and the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs.

The U.S. Catholic Conference (although not filing legal briefs) also supported the Amish.

The three Amish fathers -- Jonas Yoder and Wallace Miller of rural New Glarus, and Adin Yutzy, now of Elsinore, Missouri -- were arrested for failure to sent their high school age youth to the two years of required high school attendance and instead gave them what the Amish always give their adolescent youth -- vocational training in the community. Wisconsin law requires attendance until age sixteen.

All three courts in Wisconsin were unanimous in their findings: "The Wisconsin compulsory education law does interfere with the freedom of the defendants to act in accordance with their sincere religious beliefs." Said the Wisconsin Supreme Court, "Any high school -- public or private -- represents a deterrent to Amish salvation." "To the Amish secondary schools not only teach an unacceptable value system," said the court, "but they seek to integrate ethnic groups into a homogenized society, resulting in psychological alienation from their parents and cause great harm to the child."

Defense attorneys for the Amish were William B. Ball, chief counsel and Joseph Skelly, both of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Thomas Eckerle of Madison, Wisconsin. Assistant Attorney General John W. Calhoun handled the prosecution.

Since the Amish will not defend themselves, believing literally in the Bible -- "turn the other cheek," it says -- their defense was paid for by public donations through an interfaith group call the National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom, 30650 Six Mile Road, Livonia, Michigan 48152.

• Dr. John A. Hostetler, an anthropologist from Temple University, testified that if the Amish are forced to partake all of the value in a regular high school, "their religion will be destroyed."

• A U.S. Office of Education study introduced into the trial record concluded that the Amish youth tested slightly above the norm on basic skills when compared to regular high school students.

• Dr. Donald A. Erickson, education professor at the University of Chicago, said the Amish received in their own communities what definitely could be called "an education". The Amish training is of the "best kind", he said "They learn by doing, and I would be inclined to say they do a better job than most of the rest of us judging by the fact the they have little unemployment, delinquency or divorce."

• A law officer (Wilbur E. Deininger) of Monroe, Wisconsin said that even though the Amish do not go to high school, they were not involved in any crime.

• The Welfare Director (Ray F. Kaskey) said that the fact that Amish do not go to high school does not threaten the tax structure of the county because no Amish have ever been on welfare or public assistance.

• Frieda Yoder, 15 year old Amish girl and old enough to marry in Wisconsin, took the stand and testified that it was against her beliefs to attend high school, and that she wanted to live the way of her people.

• It was brought out at the trial that the arrest against the Amish were lodged directly upon the loss of $17,000 in state aid to the New Glarus school district because the Amish opened their own schools after disputes with authorities over such problems as shorts for gym classes.

• Beyond establishing that the Amish were not attending New Glarus High School, the prosecution presented no other testimony or witnesses.

The attorney said in his brief to the U. S. Supreme Court, "The state is insisting that there cannot be different kinds of education... all education must be dictated by the state with values derived from technology or related to consumption and competition and must be imposed upon every child".

"As all three courts in Wisconsin found, " said Ball, "the state is violating the free exercise of the Amish religion by interfering with the whole fabric of Amish worship life that permeates the whole of their ceremonial community and daily farm living, stopping parents from nurturing their children in the Amish faith, preventing the Amish youth from following their religious faith and farm vocations, and violating their right of communal association".

Ball said if the U.S. Supreme Court does not stop this invasion by the state "it will sound the death knell for an old, distinctive and innocent culture."

The Wisconsin attorney general, Robert W. Warren, in his brief to the U. S. Supreme Court said that the Amish are "neglecting" their children. Moreover, he asserts, the legislature alone controls educational policy and until that body changes the low the Amish "should be required to attend a 'more worldly' high school". (Pennsylvania, Indiana and Kansas have exempted Amish, but Wisconsin's legislature rejected consideration of the Amish problems.)

The Supreme Court will not have to decide whether the constitutional guarantees of religious freedom apply to the Amish, or whether they will have to move once more this time from the United States to find a haven where they can be left alone. One whole group left Arkansas a few years ago for Central America saying, "The government is gradually taking away our religious freedom".

In addition to the National Council of Churches, other religious groups supported the Amish.

The brief of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church said, "A child should not, except for the gravest causes, be forced to make the psychological decision of disobeying the religious precepts of his parent ... and the denial to a parent of the right to control the religious upbringing of his child is a denial of the free exercise of religion."

The Mennonite Central Committee through its attorney Donald Showalter of Harrisonburg, Virginia said in his friend of the court brief, "The education given Amish youth adequately prepares them for the future ... then clearly the legitimate state interest has been satisfied ... enforcement of the law beyond the rudiments will threaten the "very existence of the Amish religion in America." "Freedom of religion -- a constitutionally guaranteed right -- must prevail over the more nebulous and uncertain claim of the State of Wisconsin."

Nathan Lewis of Washington, D.C., counsel for the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs, said in his brief amicus curiae, "This case presents a disturbing illustration of an attempt by the state authorities to compel nonconformists, whose beliefs and practices are constitutionally protected, to adhere to norms that are entirely sound and desirable for most inhabitants of this country, but are offensive and harmful to the affected religious minority... the Constitution and the tradition of this nation do not permit this kind of coercion, which endangers all religious or ethnic minorities."

Attorney Leo Pfeffer of New York City representing the Synagogue Council of America and the American Jewish Congress said their organizations have "a strong interest in religious freedom and a religiously and culturally pluralistic America... a reversal of the decision of the Supreme Court of the State of Wisconsin may imperil these precious values". Wisconsin has failed to "establish a compelling state interest to outweigh the religious freedom, parental liberty, the rights of mature minors and family privacy," said the Jewish group, and moreover, "an education that includes eight grades is adequate to insure an informed citizenry."

Chief Justice E. Harold Hallows of the Wisconsin Supreme Court stated in his eighteen page opinion favoring the Amish: "The Amish claim, with compelling merit, that their education produces as good a product as tow additional years of compulsory high school education does." The Court further stated: To force a worldly education on all Amish children, the majority of whom do not want it or need it, in order to confer a dubious benefit on the few who might later reject their religion, is not a compelling interest. Two more years of schooling do not help the Amish in his environment," the Court said.

Two former Amishmen are members of the National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom and who now hold doctorates in their fields; They strongly support the Amish in their struggle for religious freedom. These scholars say that Amish children are not seriously deprive of leaving the church if the weigh -- some do -- and those who leave have had not difficulty in finding a place in the larger society. Employers have been eager to hire the honest, self-reliant Amish craftsmen, and a number have easily passed college entrance tests. In the Wisconsin case the Amish young people testified that they did not want to go to high school, and that they wanted to follow the religion of their parents. These young people -- physically capable of being parents in their own right -- asked the court to grant their religious liberty to choose their faith. What many people do not realize is that they are really punishing the Amish children when they advocate that they be removed from their community for schooling, because they are being deprived of relationships that they want in their own community -- and this causes psychological harm.

It must be remembered also that the Wisconsin Supreme Court only excused the readily identifiable Amish church groups until they "pose a threat" to the state. There is no known similar group that has such unique religious requirements and constitutional claims.

The Amish still drive horses and buggies, shun modern conveniences such as electricity and telephone, wear plain clothing and observe the Bible literally, "Be ye not conformed to this world".

These "Plain People" are descendants of an impressive list of Christian martyrs. In the sixteenth century their women were buried alive and the men were put in sackcloths and drowned in rivers because they would not accept infant baptism and the union of church and state. They were saved from extinction by William Penn, who afforded them freedom in America.

The "crime" of the Amish people today is that they are dissenting from an education that is increasingly technical, secular and materialistic. The Amish want an education that makes men good, compassionate, law abiding, heaven-preparing and able to earn an honest living. They believe that "God has shown that the world's wisdom is foolishness with God." (I Cor. 1:20).

The larger society socializes young people in a culture that stresses competitiveness, emphasizing the materialistic, pecuniary, highly technical pursuits in a teenage atmosphere of fast cars, rock music and Hot Pants. While the Amish are taught by their elders a different set of attitudes and religious values -- like slowness of pace, peace, love of hard work, democratic cooperativeness, and close-to-the-soil living. Sitting at a desk learning intellectual disciplines blocks Amish religious training and takes them from the training in the skills and attitudes the special life in the shops and fields requires.