The North Dakota Anit-Garb Law: Constitutional Conflictand Religious Strife

In a little known but apparently not uncommon practice in twentieth-century American education, public school systems across the nation, lacking teachers or money, employed Catholic nuns as teachers. Those opposed to employing sisters as teachers challenged their right to wear their habit, or religious garb, while teaching in a public school. 1 This paper provides the constitutional and religious background to this legal controversy and explores the issues in depth through a case study of sisters teaching in the state of North Dakota from the 1930s to the early 1960s