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Compulsory School Attendance Law Overturned

1972

In Wisconsin v. Yoder, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that a state law requiring students to attend school until age 16 violates the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. In a challenge by three Amish families whose faith led them to withdraw their children from school after the eighth grade, the Court finds that the state interest in universal education is secondary to the Amish interest in raising children in the manner dictated by their religion.