E115: Education, Wisconsin v. Yoder & The Amish Heritage Foundation w/ Torah Bontrager

Recovering From Religion

The Amish Heritage Foundation is a history-making nonprofit committed to empowering Amish women and children through education past the eighth grade, so they can choose their own futures. They provide services including cultural literacy training to institutions and individuals as well as raising public awareness about the crises hidden in Amish society. They envision that one day education will be a constitutional right for everyone in the US, and that Amish children will one day have the right to an education beyond the eight grade, including the right to learn about science, technology, engineering, mathematics, civics, law, philosophy, and the arts.

Torah Bontrager escaped in the middle of the night at age 15 so she could go to high school. She’s the author of Amish Girl in Manhattan and, to her knowledge, the first female Amish escapee to graduate from the Ivy League. Her story’s been featured on MTV and Forbes.com, among others. Today, she advocates for the right of Amish children to go to school beyond the 8th grade. Torah founded The Amish Heritage Foundation, which focuses on making education a federal right and overturning the Supreme Court case Wisconsin v. Yoder.

More about Torah Bontrager and The Amish Heritage Foundation
- https://www.TorahBontrager.com/courses
- https://www.AmishHeritage.org

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