What Are Parental Rights With Regard to Their Children’s Education?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns the right of parents to determine what and when their children are taught. The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week concerning Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case about LGBTQ books being taught to young children (ages 4 or 5 to 11) in the Montgomery County public school system. A decision in the case is expected by the end of June. Fred Lucas shared four takeaways from the court proceedings in his article published at The Daily Signal. 4 

1. Coercion or Mere Exposure?

Age aside, the oral arguments before the Supreme Court centered on whether the books were mere exposure or coercion violating the religious beliefs of parents.

“You said that nothing in the policy requires students to affirm what is being taught or what is being presented in the books. Is that a realistic concept when you are talking about a 5-year-old?” Roberts asked….

Schoenfeld framed this as similar to a 1943 Supreme Court precedent on the Pledge of Allegiance in the case of Barnette v. West Virginia State Board of Education.

“I would point the court to Barnette. The kids were young. They were 8 and 10, and the court made a distinction between being required to pledge allegiance and affirm a belief in a graven image and merely being required to remain passive during the pledge ceremony, and being instructed on what the pledge was, what the flag was and what it meant,” Schoenfeld said.

[Justice Neil Gorsuch asked, “Is that exposure or is that something else for a 3-, 5-year-old?”]

Schoenfeld replied, “It is exposure to particular ideas in teaching students to be civil in the classroom.” [As a parent, I would not want my young child to be “exposed” to anything of a sexual nature.]

2. Pull Your Child From Public School, If You Don’t Like It

During the arguments, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested to Baxter, the lawyer for the parents, that it’s not coercion because children can attend private schools or be homeschooled.

“Assuming there is no opt-out in this environment, are students being coerced into being in that school at all?” Brown asked.

“… I’m struggling to see how it burdens a parent’s religious exercise if the school teaches something the parent disagrees with. You have a choice. You can put them in another situation. You can homeschool them. How is that a burden on the parent?”

Baxter replied: “In the world we live in, most parents don’t have that option. We have two working parents. That’s the reality for our parents.”

Jackson countered, “In so many other constitutional doctrines, we don’t focus on whether people can afford to protect their rights.”

3. Are the Books Just There or Are Kids Being Taught Out of the Books?

Justice Clarence Thomas asked, “Are the books just there and no more or are they actually being taught out of the books?”

Baxter affirmed the books were required to be taught since being introduced in August 2022, and said the board of education suggested the books be used five times before the end of the school year.

“One of the schools, the Sherwood school in June for Pride Month, said that they were going to read one book each day to celebrate Pride Month,” Baxter said. “That was the entire point of withdrawing the opt-outs and removing even notifying parents who were not allowed to know, it was so that every student would be taught from the inclusivity textbooks.”

Plaintiffs were suing on religious grounds, including Catholic, Muslim, and Ukrainian Orthodox. Plaintiffs say they were initially offered the chance to opt out, but the school district reversed the offer. The school district has said it tried to accommodate, but the parents requests became unworkable.

The plaintiffs referred to the 1972 precedent of Wisconsin v. Yoder, where the high court held Amish families couldn’t be forced to send children to school after the eighth grade. Parents say they are asking for a far more narrow First Amendment accommodation. However,  the Montgomery County school district contends this would mean no limit for accommodations.

4. Debating ‘Uncle Bobby’s Wedding’

Both Alito and Justice Sonia Sotomayor referred to one of the books, “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” about a same-sex wedding.

Sotomayor asked, “So, what you’re saying is that the exposure of children to the fact that two people are getting married is coercion, that two people of the same sex is coercion?”

Baxter clarified, “Our clients have not raised that objection.”

Baxter stressed that the high court’s ruling in 2015 in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage, that “parents would be able to teach what this court called decent and honorable beliefs that same-sex marriage is immoral, according to their beliefs.”

“It’s a far stretch from that for schools to compel students to attend,” he said.

Alito argued that the book “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” didn’t present a factual case to leave it up to the students.

“The book has a clear message. And a lot of people think it’s a good message, and maybe it is a good message. But it’s a message that a lot of people who hold onto traditional religious beliefs don’t agree with,” Alito said. “I don’t think anyone can read that and think, well, this is just telling children that there are occasions when men marry other men…. Everyone accepts this except for little Chloe who has reservations about this. And her mother corrects her. It has a clear moral message.”

Sotomayor later objected that she interpreted the book differently to mean that the little girl was worried her uncle would spend more time with his husband than her.