<i>Meyer</i>, <i>Pierce</i>, and the Formation of Persons

This essay, written for a conference marking the centennial of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) and Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), suggests that both the ongoing importance and the frustrating elusiveness of these decisions reflect the fact that questions of the formation of persons– as contrasted with matters of the expression or manifestation of personhood– are of crucial importance in the protection of liberty and yet are difficult to grasp and address within constitutional and liberal premises. In this predicament, the decisions dealt with the problem of formation of personhood by embracing what may be the only available solution within the liberal and American constitutional system– namely, a sort of anti-monopoly principle.