In 1919, the Nebraska Legislature made it a crime to use any language other than English to teach students younger than 9th grade. The law applied to all schools, private and public.
It was an intolerant era. The Ku Klux Klan marched in Washington. People terrorized immigrants.
In Nebraska, the legislature picked on Catholic and Lutheran schools that taught religious subjects to immigrant children in their primary language, rather than in English.
Robert T. Meyer was a teacher at a Lutheran school. He knew the parents of his students wanted their children to learn religious lessons, in Luther’s German, during recess.
He knew about the law and knew what was going on when he saw the county attorney standing in the doorway. Meyer later told the story to his lawyer, Arthur Mullen, who gave this account:
“I had my choice,” (Meyer) told me afterward in that quiet voice which was more impressive than any shouting. “I knew that, if I changed into the English language, he would say nothing. If I went on in German, he would come in, and arrest me. I told myself that I must not flinch. And I did not flinch. I went on in German.”
“Why?” I asked him.
He widened his gaze a little. “It was my duty,” he said simply. “I am not a pastor in my church. I am a teacher, but I have the same duty to uphold my religion. Teaching the children the religion of their fathers in the language of their fathers is part of that religion.”
Meyer was arrested, tried and convicted. He was fined $25. His case eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Of course it was overturned. The case seems barbaric today because we have enjoyed a century of broader protections under the 14th Amendment since Meyer v. Nebraska was decided in 1923.
The story cheers me up whenever I read the news about the idiotic laws being passed in states like Texas and Florida that restrict what teachers can teach.
Somewhere out there, there are teachers who will teach history with that same sense of integrity.
As a corollary for the rest of us, it would be wise to choose presidents who will pick justices with the aim of preserving freedom, rather than limiting it.
• Sources: David Kopel, “Meyer v. Nebraska: As told by the lawyer who won it”; The Washington Post, Feb. 4, 2016. He quotes from Arthur Mullen’s autobiography, Western Democrat, published in 1940.
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