Wisconsin v. Yoder and the Libertarian View on Publicly Funded Education

The 1972 Supreme Court case Wisconsin v. Yoder concerns the limits of state interference in fundamental rights. In the first section of this article, I will use Milton Friedman's framework of Libertarianism to assess the majority opinion in Wisconsin v. Yoder. I will argue that Libertarian followers of Milton Friedman would agree with Chief Justice Burger's ruling in Wisconsin v. Yoder because they believe that the government should be limited in administering education and that families should have more freedom of choice. Next, I will provide my strongest objection to the Libertarian reading, which is that parents do not always allow their children to develop into autonomous individuals. Then, I will argue that for this reason, the government must act as a check on the power of parents, in the same way that private enterprise must act as a check on the power of government.