# Prince and Yoder · The Cult Dossier · The Atlas · The Congregation of Tomorrow

Source: https://congregationoftomorrow.org/atlas/library/cults/181-prince-and-yoder/ · The Congregation of Tomorrow · the Atlas · language: en
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The Cult Dossier · No. 181 · Second Generation / Born In
Prince and Yoder
What the state may do for a child inside a group
1944 – present · United States, and the reasoning is borrowed well beyond it
XVIII. THE SECOND GENERATION — THE ONES WHO NEVER CHOSE
The cases concern Jehovah's Witnesses and the Amish respectively. NEITHER GROUP IS ACCUSED OF ANYTHING IN THIS ENTRY; they are simply where the law got made.
### Who led it
### What it worshipped and taught
### Who was in it
### How it ended, or where it stands
### The dead
### Of note
### Its timeline
- 31 JANUARY 1944 PRINCE v. MASSACHUSETTS, 321 U.S. 158. Sarah Prince, a Jehovah's Witness, was convicted under child labour law for having her nine-year-old niece distribute religious literature in the street. The conviction was upheld. Justice Rutledge wrote the sentence the whole field still quotes: PARENTS MAY BE FREE TO BECOME MARTYRS THEMSELVES. BUT IT DOES NOT FOLLOW THEY ARE FREE, IN IDENTICAL CIRCUMSTANCES, TO MAKE MARTYRS OF THEIR CHILDREN BEFORE THEY HAVE REACHED THE AGE OF FULL AND LEGAL DISCRETION WHEN THEY CAN MAKE THAT CHOICE FOR THEMSELVES.
- 15 MAY 1972 WISCONSIN v. YODER, 406 U.S. 205. Amish parents refused to send their children, aged fourteen and fifteen, to school past the eighth grade. THE COURT HELD THAT COMPULSORY ATTENDANCE BEYOND THAT POINT VIOLATED THEIR FREE EXERCISE RIGHTS, accepting that the community's way of life was itself a form of education and would be endangered by more schooling.
- 1972 onward YODER BECOMES THE FOUNDATION OF THE AMERICAN RELIGIOUS-EXEMPTION ARGUMENT IN EDUCATION, and is relied on by groups with nothing in common with the Amish.
- 2008 The two lines collide at the YFZ Ranch (179): the state asserts a Prince-style interest in the children and the courts answer that it has not proved anything about any particular one of them.
- Present BOTH DECISIONS STAND. NEITHER HAS BEEN OVERRULED, AND THE TENSION BETWEEN THEM HAS NEVER BEEN RESOLVED.
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