William Bentley Ball is not a household name. Even among lawyers, references to “Bill Ball,” as he was once known, rarely prompt a meaningful reaction. “I’ve never heard of him,” most law professors and students would likely respond if asked.
And yet, more than 50 years ago, this little-known Pennsylvania lawyer helped change the course of American legal history.
In the early 1970s, William Bentley Ball argued Wisconsin v. Yoder before the US Supreme Court. In Yoder, the Court was asked to decide whether Wisconsin could compel Amish families to send their children to school beyond eighth grade. For the Amish, this compulsory school-attendance law was untenable because, at this time in life, an Amish child is to “grow in his faith and his relationship to the Amish community” by “acquir[ing] Amish attitudes favoring manual work and self-reliance and the specific skills needed to perform the adult role of an Amish farmer or housewife.”
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