The Oregon School Bill, 1922

The Oregon School Bill, 1922 November 7, 2009

The 1920’s saw the last great wave of organized anti-Catholicism. One of the most powerful expressions of this bias was the passage of the Oregon Compulsory Education Act on this day in 1922. Known as the Oregon School Bill, on a single day in June 1922 volunteers from the Klan (seen here in a 1925 Oregon rally) and the Masonic Lodges collected enough votes to put the proposition on the ballot. On election day, November 7, 1922, by a margin of 107,498 to 97,204, the voters of the state approved the proposal. It declared that after September 1, 1926, all children ages 8-16 must attend only public schools. This was one of the most serious threats ever mounted in the country against freedom of education. On June 1, 1925, however, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the Oregon School Bill in the case Pierce v. Society of Sisters. One historian writes that this wasn’t a victory just for Catholic schools, but for the principle of pluralism in America

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