ABSTRACT
In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 US 510, the US Supreme Court invalidated an Oregon statute requiring children to attend public schools, because the law violated the due process liberty rights of parents to send their children to a school of their choice. The Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, an operator of Catholic schools, and the Hill Military Academy believed the new law to be unconstitutional. The Court further recognized that a state had the power to require students to attend some school and to provide regulation to assure that the schools were doing a good job at education. Pierce influenced the development of civil liberties jurisprudence in the twentieth century. The ruling was especially important in developing the right to privacy identified in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 US 479, and applied to abortion in Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113.
