Meyer v. Nebraska

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Meyer v. Nebraska

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued February 23, 1923
Decided June 4, 1923


Full case name:	Meyer v. State of Nebraska

Citations:	262 U.S. 390; 43 S. Ct. 625; 67 L. Ed. 1042; 1923 U.S. LEXIS 2655; 29 A.L.R. 1446

Prior history:	Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Nebraska

Holding

The Court held that a 1919 Nebraska law prohibiting the teaching of modern foreign languages to grade school children unconstitutionally violated the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment.

Court membership

Chief Justice: William Howard Taft
Associate Justices: Joseph McKenna, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Willis Van Devanter, James Clark McReynolds, Louis Brandeis, George Sutherland, Pierce Butler, Edward Terry Sanford

Case opinions

Majority by: McReynolds
Joined by: Taft, McKenna, Van Devanter, Brandeis, Butler, Sanford
Dissent by: Holmes
Dissent by: Sutherland

Laws applied

U.S. Const. amend. XIV

Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923)^[1], was a U.S. Supreme Court case which held that a 1919 Nebraska law prohibiting the teaching of modern foreign languages to grade school children unconstitutionally violated the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In his decision, Justice McReynolds, stated that although the state "may do much . . . in order to improve the quality of its citizens," the statute exceeded "the limitations on the power of the state and conflict[ed] with rights assured" to Meyer. The "liberty" protected by the Due Process clause "denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint", but also included "those privileges . . . essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men."

Meyer, along with Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 269 U.S. 510, is often cited as one of the first instances in which the U.S. Supreme Court engaged in substantive due process in the area of civil liberties.

In the fictional drama The West Wing the case was mentioned as an example of the Supreme Court ruling in an activist manner to preserve democratic freedoms promoted, but not explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution. Labelling the case in this way is a matter of opinion. The mention occurred in season 6, episode 14: "The Wake Up Call."