Olff v. East Side Union High School District’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
350 federal appellate · 45 district · 86 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 657 later decisions (11 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2025 · most notably Federated Department Stores, Inc. v. Moitie (1981), Ham v. South Carolina (1973)
350 federal appellate · 45 district · 86 state decisions — followed in 22 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Griswold v. State of Connecticut · Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District · Meyer v. State of Nebraska · Prince v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts · White v. United States
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 657 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[o]ne's hair style, like one's taste for food, or one's liking for certain kinds of music, art, reading, recreation, is certainly fundamental in our constitutional scheme—a scheme designed to keep government off the backs of people”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“Sampson's locks symbolically signified his virility. Many of the Founding Fathers of this country wore wigs. President Lincoln grew a beard at the suggestion of a juvenile female admirer. Chief Justice Hughes' beard furnished the model for the frieze over the portico of the Supreme Court of the United States proclaiming 'equal justice under law.'”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“It seems incredible that under our federalism a State can deny a student education in' its public school system unless his hair style comports with the standards of the school board.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.