April 9, 1919
Nebraska enacted a law that outlawed teaching in any foreign language in public or private schools and also the teaching of any foreign language before the eighth grade. The law was part of the anti-German hysteria that had swept the country during World War I. In 1920, Robert T. Meyer was convicted of teaching reading to a forth grader, in German. Although the appeals court found that allowing immigrants to educate their children in their mother tongue was “inimical to our own safety,” the law was overturned by the US Supreme Court in 1923 Citing the Due Process clause, Justice McReynolds noted that the law interfered ” with the opportunities of pupils to acquire knowledge, and with the power of parents to control the education of their own.”
