Supreme Court gives parents more sway over schooling

In a term-ending blockbuster ruling Friday, the Supreme Court delivered a resounding endorsement of religious liberty. The court’s decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor vindicates the right of Maryland parents to pull their elementary-age children out of classes with LGBTQ-themed storybooks that are offensive to parents’ religious beliefs.

Writing for the 6-3 majority, Justice Samuel Alito upheld the primacy of parents in determining the religious upbringing of their children. “A government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill,” Alito wrote.

And it doesn’t matter, as lower courts concluded, that schools are not forcing students to change their beliefs, Alito added. Religious beliefs are substantially burdened by more “subtle forms of interference with the religious upbringing of children,” he said, and that includes the introduction of the LGBTQ-themed storybooks.

Three families—Muslim, Roman Catholic, and Ukrainian Orthodox—along with Kids First, an association formed to advocate for school opt-outs, filed the lawsuit against Montgomery County Public Schools in July 2023.

School officials previously allowed parents to opt their children out of the readings. But in March 2023, the school district’s decision to move the books from the school’s family life resources to its language arts curriculum made a state opt-out law inapplicable. That’s when the multifaith group of parents rallied.

Backed by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the parents came to the Supreme Court last year after a district court and a federal appeals court both ruled against them. At oral arguments in April, several justices seemed troubled by the school district’s embrace of the sexually themed materials and by the lower courts’ requirement that parents demonstrate that educators coerced their children into changing their beliefs on sexuality and gender.

Echoing Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s remarks at oral arguments, Alito wrote that the storybooks and the instruction are “unmistakably normative”—that is, meant to influence young children in the acceptability of same-sex marriage and gender fluidity.

“These books impose upon children a set of values and beliefs that are ‘hostile’ to their parents’ religious beliefs,” Alito wrote. “And the books exert upon children a psychological ‘pressure to conform’ to their specific viewpoints.”

Alito also shot down the school district’s argument—which dissenting justices accepted—that allowing opt-outs would unduly burden the school, given the number of parents who would likely choose to take their children out of the lessons.

In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggested that the ruling would mean “chaos for this Nation’s public schools.”

But Alito countered that the school district already allowed opt-outs for a variety of reasons without unduly disturbing the school environment. “When it comes to instruction that would burden the religious exercise of parents, the Board cannot escape its obligations under the free exercise clause by crafting a curriculum that is so burdensome that a substantial number of parents elect to opt out,” Alito wrote.

Sotomayor also raised schools’ interests in melding a national identity. “They offer to children of all faiths and backgrounds an education and an opportunity to practice living in our multicultural society,” she wrote. “That experience is critical to our Nation’s civic vitality. Yet it will become a mere memory if children must be insulated from exposure to ideas and concepts that may conflict with their parents’ religious beliefs.”

But Alito took issue with Sotomayor’s suggestion that the inclusion of the lessons was about mere exposure. “Only by air-brushing the record can the dissent claim that the books and instruction are just about exposure and kindness,” Alito said.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas was even more critical. “The Board’s response to parents’ unsuccessful attempts to opt their children out of the storybook curriculum conveys that parents’ religious views are not welcome in the ‘fully inclusive environment’ that the Board purports to foster,” he wrote. Thomas recounted a school board member’s comments that compared parents to “white supremacists” and “xenophobes.”

Thomas Berg, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, co-authored a friend-of-the-court brief with a group of other First Amendment scholars that supported the parents. He said the ruling vindicated important free exercise rights for parents of students and put to rest the argument that parents’ right to choose private education or homeschool made opt-outs unnecessary.

But Berg said the ruling also invited other questions—some suggested by the dissent’s warnings. Some educators may wonder how to affirm all students’ dignity without promoting a particular ideology or lifestyle.

Others, Berg said, may question how far opt-out rights can go. “Take, for example, the case of evolution in a science curriculum,” Berg suggested. “Obviously, the objections to that are sincere. Many parents have them. How will that work to opt out of that?”

Sotomayor raised other possible situations where parents may seek opt-outs for their children. “Books expressing implicit support for patriotism, women’s rights, interfaith marriage, consumption of meat, immodest dress, and countless other topics may conflict with sincerely held religious beliefs and thus trigger stringent judicial review under the majority’s test,” she said.

Even interactions with teachers could foster opt-outs, she offered. “If a student calls a classmate a ‘sinner’ for not wearing a headcovering or coming out as gay, how can a teacher respond without ‘undermining’ that child’s religious beliefs?” she asked.

Berg also called attention to the ruling’s ramifications for lawsuits over the establishment clause—including pending challenges to state laws in Louisiana and Texas that require public schools to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms. “What they say [here] about … the kind of inherently coercive power of public schools and the teachers’ authority and how that will influence students is true with respect to religious symbols as well,” he said.

While the case is not over, Montgomery County schools will have to offer opt-outs to parents while the case makes its way to trial. For that, parents are grateful.

Billy Moges, director of Kids First, summed up what some parents felt in a statement after the ruling Friday morning. “We thank the Lord for His faithfulness, for raising up voices of truth and justice, and for moving in the hearts of the judges to uphold righteousness,” Moges said. “This moment is a reminder that when we stand firm in faith and pursue justice, God goes before us.”