Fighting the Educational Monopoly
Chapter 6 describes how federal courts, by sanctioning public regulation, saved private education from outright abolition. In 1922 voters in Oregon approved an initiative, aimed at Catholics, that criminalized attendance in private schools. The National Catholic Welfare Conference challenged the law’s constitutionality and, in Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), the Supreme Court struck it down. Throughout the legal proceedings, Catholic lawyers, led by William D. Guthrie, argued that abolishing private schools was unnecessary because states routinely exercised broad powers of regulation. The Court agreed, asserting that because Oregon possessed significant authority to supervise and manage private schools, states could not legally strip them of their property through abolition. While the case later became a pillar for the constitutional right to privacy, the ruling represented a strong assertion of public authority. Public regulation aided rather than hindered the development of private schooling in the United States.