Meyer v. Nebraska

262 U.S. 390 (1923)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

A Nebraska law makes it a criminal offense to teach any subject to any person in any private, denominational, parochial or public school in any language other than English. Foreign languages could only be taught to those above the eighth grade. Meyer (D) was indicted and convicted of this offense. The Supreme Court of the State affirmed the judgment of conviction, and it held that the statute forbidding this did not conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment, but was a valid exercise of the police power. The obvious purpose of this statute was that the English language should be and become the mother tongue of all children reared in the state. The enactment of such a statute comes reasonably within the police power of the state.