Court Opinion

ID: 9418505
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:28:36.417739+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:04.348117
License: Public Domain

*412Mr. Justice Holmes,
dissenting.
We all agree, I take it, that it is desirable that all the citizens of the United States should speak a common tongue, and therefore that the end aimed at by the statute is. a lawful and proper one. The only question is whether the means adopted deprive teachers of the liberty secured to them by the Fourteenth Amendment. It is with hesitation and unwillingness that I differ from my brethren with regard to a law like this but I cannot bring my mind to believe that in some circumstances, and circumstances existing it is said in Nebraska, the statute might not be regarded as a reasonable or even necessary method of reaching the desired result. The part of the act with which we are concerned deals with the teaching of young children. Youth is the time when familiarity with a language is established and if there are sections in the State where a child would hear only Polish or French or German spoken at home I am' not prepared to say that it is unreasonable to provide that in his early years he shall hear and speak only English at school. But if it is reasonable it is not an undue restriction of the liberty either of teacher or scholar. No one would doubt that a teacher might be forbidden to teach many things, and the only criterion of his liberty under the Constitution that I can think of is “ whether, considering the end in view, the statute passes the bounds of reason and assumes the character of a merely arbitrary fiat.” Purity Extract & Tonic Co. v. Lynch, 226 U. S. 192, 204. Hebe Co. v. Shaw, 248 U. S. 297, 303. Jacob Ruppert v. Caffey, 251 U. S. 264. I think I appreciate the objection to the law but it appears to me to present a question upon which men reasonably might differ and therefore I am unable to say that the Constitution of the United States prevents the experiment being tried.
*413I agree with the Court as to the special proviso against the German language contained in the statute dealt with in Bohning v. Ohio.
Mr. Justice Sutherland concurs in this opinion.