## Facts

- Voluntary associations operated privately funded foreign-language schools in the Territory of Hawaii, predominantly Japanese-language schools serving roughly 20,000 students and employing about 300 teachers.
- Children attending these schools generally also attended required public or equivalent schools to satisfy compulsory attendance laws.
- Hawaii enacted a statutory scheme regulating foreign-language schools and teachers through permitting requirements and detailed administrative oversight.
- Implementing regulations subjected schools to extensive governmental control over teachers, curriculum, textbooks, and operations.
- School owners and parents alleged the combined requirements would effectively eliminate the schools and prevent parents from securing desired language instruction for their children.
- A federal district court issued a temporary injunction prohibiting territorial officials from enforcing the statute and regulations; the Ninth Circuit affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether the foreign-language school statute and regulations, considered as a whole, violated the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause by unreasonably infringing the liberty of parents to direct their children’s education and the property and liberty interests of private school operators.
2. Whether the district court abused its discretion in granting an interlocutory injunction on the record before it.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the Ninth Circuit’s decision sustaining the district court’s interlocutory injunction.
- The Court held that, taken as a whole, the statutory scheme appeared to infringe Fifth Amendment due process rights of private school owners and parents.
- The Court concluded the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing temporary injunctive relief given the substantial constitutional concerns and the likely destructive effect of enforcement.
- The Court declined at this stage to rule on the constitutionality of individual provisions separately, focusing on the cumulative effect of the statute and regulations.

## Legal Principles

- The Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause constrains federal and territorial action and protects fundamental liberty and property interests in the educational context, providing protection comparable to that recognized under the Fourteenth Amendment against state action.
- Parents have a protected liberty interest to direct the education of their children, including obtaining instruction not shown to conflict with legitimate public interests.
- Government may regulate private schools, but regulation that effectively transfers essential control to public officers or threatens to destroy private educational institutions can violate due process.
- In reviewing an interlocutory injunction, appellate courts focus on whether the trial court improperly exercised discretion, especially where enforcement threatens serious constitutional injury.

## Conclusion

The Court sustained temporary injunctive relief against Hawaii’s foreign-language school regime because its cumulative requirements likely imposed unconstitutional, destructive control over private language schools and unreasonably interfered with parents’ Fifth Amendment liberty to direct their children’s education.


Farrington v. Tokushige, 273 U.S. 284 (1927)