Supreme Court Handed a Big Religious Freedom Win to Public School Parents
The U.S. Supreme Court got it right in a win for religious liberty in Mahmoud v. Taylor on June 27. Parents have a fundamental right to direct the moral and religious upbringing of their children, even in the public-school setting. Parental rights don’t end at the classroom door.
For more than 100 years, the high court has consistently recognized that parents have a constitutionally protected right to raise and educate their children. But the last several decades have brought many lower court cases wrongly limiting parents’ choice in education to public, private, or homeschool.
These limits opened the door for schools to often hold mandatory vulgar sex-ed assemblies, administer controversial “trauma” surveys (including sexual content) to young children, and implement school-sponsored condom distribution programs. Today, in classrooms and libraries across the country, children are taught that they may have been born in the wrong body and that sex is based on subjective feelings, not objective reality.
Such ideas violate the conscience and convictions of many families, like the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish parents from Montgomery County, Maryland, in Mahmoud. They united to challenge the district’s refusal to follow policy and give reasonable notice and opt-out rights afforded to parents for other topics.
Mahmoud is decisive: Parents’ fundamental right to direct the religious development of their children is entitled to “a generous measure of constitutional protection.” And there are “recognized limits” on public schools’ “ability to interfere with a student’s religious upbringing.”
Schools have an obligation to respect parents’ and students’ free exercise rights. They can’t introduce “LGBTQ+-inclusive” books “hostile to parents’ religious beliefs” that “pressure children to conform”—celebrating specific values and beliefs as normal while rejecting contrary ones as “hateful.”
Parents have choices in public schools, not just in their private homes. Yes, schools have appropriate control over day-to-day operations and curriculum designed to serve basic educational standards and prepare students for higher education. (Think math, reading, and writing.)
But what schools can’t do is ignore—or callously trample—on the religious liberty of parents and students in the process.
Parents are the primary decision-makers for their children’s education and upbringing. This means parents—not bureaucrats—choose when and how their young children are exposed to sensitive topics about gender and sexuality. Schools are for education, not indoctrination.
It’s noteworthy that the religious parents in Mahmoud didn’t challenge the curriculum itself. For example, they did not demand that the district abandon the controversial books, nor did they insist that particular modules be taught in their place.
The parents merely wanted to be notified and have the chance to opt their children out of inappropriate and objectionable indoctrination. They (like concerned parents speaking at school boards around the country) are not advocating for schools to teach a particular religion or set of beliefs. They’re only asking that schools honor parents’ constitutional right to shape their children’s moral compass.
Some argue that religious parents should just withdraw their children from public schools and choose private schooling or homeschooling. But, in Mahmoud, the Supreme Court made clear that families can’t be forced to surrender their free exercise rights to receive the public benefit of public education.
And the real problem can’t be ignored: Government-funded schools are pushing ideologically driven policies and curriculum that force families of faith (or even no faith) to abandon their convictions and embrace the state’s view on contested issues like same-sex marriage and gender.
Children and families deserve better. Parents and students need choices. And not just about controversial curriculum, but policies too.
Parents like Joe and Serena Wailes, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, need choices. Their 11-year-old daughter was assigned to share a hotel room (and was supposed to share a bed) on an overnight school trip with a male student who “identified” as female—without their knowledge or the opportunity to opt out.
Parents like Stephen Foote, January Littlejohn, and ADF-client Jennifer Vitsaxaki also need choices. Their young daughters were secretly “socially transitioned” at school and encouraged to reject their sex and adopt new “gender identities” with different names and inaccurate pronouns. No parental notification. No opt-out.
No matter what side of the issues or aisle we’re on, all should agree that parents—not politicians—know what’s best for their kids.
Schools can’t require parents to forsake their religious beliefs and allow indoctrination of their children. Such mandates coerce parents to choose between the government benefit of public education and their First Amendment rights. Schools simply can’t put parents to that unconstitutional choice.
