On May 25, 1920, Robert T. Meyer was reading to his elementary students when the county attorney entered his classroom. A teacher at a private school in Hampton, Nebraska, run by the local Zion Lutheran Church, Meyer was giving a German-language lesson. He knew a state law, enacted during the xenophobic hysteria at the end of the Great War, banned foreign language instruction. Even so, he continued speaking German. He was later indicted, found guilty, and fined. Meyer appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court. And on June 4, 1923, it ruled in his favor, issuing one of the most sweeping defenses of individual freedom in history.
Please join the Center for Judicial Engagement at the Institute for Justice on March 31, 2023, when we celebrate the centenary of this monumental moment for liberty and the foundation for so much in the years that followed. We will begin with our keynote speaker and the foremost historian of the decision, Professor William G. Ross of Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law. He will detail the case’s background and drama, including the characters involved, what led the Court to rule as it did, and its immediate aftermath. Then we will welcome four different panels of experts to discuss the various ways the decision has shaped numerous areas of constitutional law, including the right to earn a living, the right to raise a family, the First Amendment’s protections of speech and religion, and the incorporation of the Bill of Rights against the states. Our last panel will then consider the continuing influence of Meyer on unenumerated rights as we look to the future.
Please join us! Our conference will be in person in Washington, D.C. at a convenient location just a couple blocks from the Supreme Court. If you’re not in the D.C. area or unable to join us, it will also be streamed online. It will be free of charge, with a free lunch and a reception.
Register with the form below! To watch online please use this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jaxMIKMX8Y
Special Guests
Albert P. Brewer Professor of Law and Ethics, Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law
University Professor & Executive Director of the Liberty & Law Center, George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School
Associate Professor & Vice Dean for Undergraduate Education, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Founder and President, Free Families Foundation
Judge William Hawley Atwell Chair of Constitutional Law, Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law
John S. Battle Professor of Law & Joseph C. Carter, Jr. Research Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
David Berger Professor for the Administration of Justice, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School