Hamilton v. Regents of the University of California 17 8212 18, 1934

Citation79 L.Ed. 343,55 S.Ct. 197,293 U.S. 245
Decision Date03 December 1934
Docket NumberNo. 55,55
PartiesHAMILTON et al. v. REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA et al. * Argued Oct. 17—18, 1934
CourtUnited States Supreme Court

[Syllabus from pages 246-248 intentionally omitted] Messrs. John Beardsley, of Los Angeles, Cal., and Gregory Hankin, of Washington, D.C., for appellants.

[Argument of counsel from pages 246-249 intentionally omitted] Mr. John U. Calkins, Jr., of San Francisco, Cal., for appellees.

Mr. Justice BUTLER delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is an appeal under § 237(a), Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. § 344(a), 28 USCA § 344(a), from a judgment of the highest court of California sustaining a state law that requires students at its University to take a course in military science and tactics, the validity of which was by the appellants challenged as repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States.

The appellants are the above-named minors and the fathers of each as his guardian ad litem and individually. They are taxpayers and citizens of the United States and of California. Appellees are the regents constituting a corporation created by the state to administer the University, its president, and its provost. Appellants applied to the state Supreme Court for a writ of mandate compelling appellees to admit the minors into the University as students. So far as they are material to the questions presented here, the allegations of the petition are:

In October, 1933, each of these minors registered, became a student in the University, and fully conformed to all its requirements other than that compelling him to take the course in military science and tactics in the Reserve Officers Training Corps which they assert to be an integral part of the military establishment of the United States and not connected in any way with the militia or military establishment of the state. The primary object of there establishing units of the training corps is to qualify students for appointment in the Officers Reserve Corps. The courses in military training are those prescribed by the War Department. The regents require enrollment and participation of ablebodied male students who are citizens of the United States. These courses include instruction in rifle marksmanship, scouting and patrolling, drill and command, musketry, combat principles, and use of automatic rifles. Arms, equipment, and uniforms for use of students in such courses are furnished by the War Department of the United States government.

These minors are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and of the Epworth League and connected religious societies and organizations. For many years their fathers have been ordained ministers of that church. The Southern California Conference at its 1931 session adopted a resolution:

'With full appreciation of the heroic sacrifices of all those who have conscientiously and unselfishly served their country in times of war, but with the belief that the time has come in the unfolding light of the new day for the settlement of human conflicts by pacific means, and because we as Christians owe our first and supreme allegiance to Jesus Christ. Because the Methodist Episcopal Church in her General Conference of 1928 has declared: 'We renounce war as an instrument of national policy.' Because our nation led the nations of the world in signing the Paris Peace Pact, and the Constitution of the United States, Article 6, Section 2, provides that: 'This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof and all treaties made under authority of the United States shall be the Supreme Law of the Land'. Thus making the Paris Pact the supreme law of the land which declares: 'The high contracting parties agree that the settlement of all disputes or conflict shall never be sought except by pacific means.'

'Therefore we, the Southern California Conference, memorialize the General Conference which convenes in Atlantic City in May, 1932; to petition the United States Government to grant exemption from military service to such citizens who are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as conscientiously believe that participation in war is a denial of their supreme allegiance to Jesus Christ.'

And in 1932 the General Conference of that church adopted as a part of its tenets and discipline:

'We hold that our country is benefited by having as citizens those who unswervingly follow the dictates of their consciences * * * Furthermore, we believe it to be the duty of the churches to give moral support to those individuals who hold conscientious scruples against participation in military training or military service. We petition the government of the United States to grant to members of the Methodist Episcopal Church who may be conscientious objectors to war the same exemption from military service as has long been granted to members of the Society of Friends and other similar religious organizations. Similarly we petition all educational institutions which require military training to excuse from such training any student belonging to the Methodist Episcopal Church who has conscientious scruples against it. We earnestly petition the government of the United States to cease to support financially all military training in civil educational institutions.'

And the Southern California Conference at its 1933 session adopted the following:

'Reserve Officers' Training Corps—Recalling the action of the General Conference asking for exemption from military service for those members of our church to whom war and preparation for war is a violation of conscience, we request the authorities of our State Universities at Berkeley, Los Angeles and Tucson, to exempt Methodist students from the R.O.T.C. on the grounds of conscien- tious objection, and we hereby pledge the moral and official backing of this Conference, seeking such exemption, provided that it be understood that no conscientious objector shall participate in the financial profits of war. The Secretary of the Conference is asked to send copies of this paragraph to the governing boards of these institutions.'

Appellants as members of that church accept and feel themselves morally, religiously, and conscientiously bound by its tenets and discipline as expressed in the quoted conference resolutions; each is a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ; each accepts as a guide His teachings and those of the Bible, and holds as a part of his religious and conscientious belief that war, training for war, and military training are immoral, wrong, and contrary to the letter and spirit of His teaching and the precepts of the Christian religion.

Therefore these students at the beginning of the fall term in 1933 petitioned the University for exemption from military training and participation in the activities of the training corps, upon the ground of their religious and conscientious objection to war and to military training. Their petition was denied. Thereupon, through that church's bishop in California, they and their fathers petitioned the regents that military training be made optional in order that conscientious and religious objectors to war, training for war, and military training might not be confronted with the necessity of violating and foreswearing their beliefs or being denied the right of education in the State University to which these minors are entitled under the Constitution and laws of the state of California and of the United States.

The regents refused to make military training optional or to exempt these students. Then, because of their religious and conscientious objections, they declined to take the prescribed course, and solely upon that ground the regents by formal notification suspended them from the University, but with leave to apply for readmission at any time conditioned upon their ability and willingness to comply with all applicable regulations of the University governing the matriculation and attendance of students. The University affords opportunity for education such as may not be had at any other institution in California except at a greater cost which these minors are not able to pay. And they, as appellees at the time of their suspension well knew, are willing to take as a substitute for military training such other courses as may be prescribed by the University.

Other allegations of the petition need not be stated, as they merely go to show the grounds upon which appellants under the state practice sought the writ of mandate.

The University is a land grant college. An act of Congress (Morrill Act approved July 2, 1862, 12 Stat. 503, 7 U.S.C. §§ 301 308 (7 USCA §§ 301—308)) donated public lands to the several states in order that upon the conditions specified all moneys derived from the sale of such lands or from the sale of land scrip issued under the act should be invested and constitute a perpetual fund the interest of which should be inviolably appropriated by each state accepting the benefits of the act 'to the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.'1

March 23, 1868, the Legislature of California passed an act creating the University 'in order to devote to the largest purposes of education the benefaction made to the State' by the Morrill Act. St. 1867—68, p. 248. This law of the state, called the organic act, provides that 'any resident of California, of the age of fourteen years or upwards, of approved moral character, shall have the right to enter himself in the University as a student at large, and receive tuition in any...

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