The right to opt out one’s children from studying a sinister collection of sexually explicit storybooks in suburban Maryland, and the right to opt in to a Catholic Virtual charter school in Oklahoma, will be considered this month at the Supreme Court. That these two cases are under review by the high court is a strong indication that – after decades of being ignored by our educational system and the courts – parental rights are back.
The first case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, was brought by a group of parents whose children attend public schools in Montgomery County, Maryland. In the fall of 2022, the local school board announced it would use “Pride Storybooks,” a collection of around 20 books for the county’s youngest learners – pre-K through eighth-grade. The collection does not just celebrate Pride parades: it also introduces small children to the gruesome process of "gender-transitioning" and, inevitably, the ludicrous dogma of "pronoun preferences."
Objections were raised by parents from faith traditions including Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and Islam. Their religious views do not endorse the ideologies pushed in the collection and they don’t want their children indoctrinated. When their pleas to opt their young children out of this curriculum were rejected by their school board, they went to court. These parents are asking simply for the right to protect their children from these far-left storybooks. Withdrawing the collection, they believe, is a matter for the school board.
A district court ruled that the parents couldn’t show that the school board’s “no-opt-out policy” burdened their religious exercise. A divided Fourth Circuit panel agreed last May, ruling that, in the absence of any “coercive effect,” there is no burden on religious exercise. Losing twice in federal court is enough to discourage most parties, but not these parents. They successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to review their case.
When it comes to protecting the interests of parents in their children’s education and religious formation, there is no better guardian than this Supreme Court. Just think back to 2020 when the Court struck down the “No-Aid” provision in Montana’s state constitution that excluded religious schools and families from a publicly-funded scholarship program for students attending private schools. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, recognized the “rights of parents to direct the religious upbringing of their children” as an “enduring American tradition.” His colleague, Justice Samuel Alito, added in a concurring opinion that “many parents of many different faiths still believe that their local school inculcates a worldview that is antithetical to what they teach at home.”
39 amici filed briefs with the Supreme Court in support of the Montgomery County parents’ simple quest to shield their children from what is “antithetical to what they teach at home.” The Trump administration alsosupports the parents and has requested time during oral argument. Its role in support of parental rights is a refreshing change from the Biden administration’s shocking hostility toward parents who challenged progressive doctrines. The Court heard oral argument on April 22.
Like some of the objecting parents in Montgomery County, many parents of faith are also unable to afford the tuition to send their children to private religious schools and similarly find themselves trapped by official ideology. The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa responded to their plight, planning to operate St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School as a charter school. While the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved the application for charter-school sponsorship, the state’s Attorney General, Gentner Drummond, balked. In a split decision, the Oklahoma Supreme Court gave in to Drummond, ruling that the charter school violated state and federal law and was unconstitutional. The court bizarrely ruled that the Free Exercise guarantee was not implicated.
Clearly the Oklahoma Attorney General and state supreme court haven’t been paying much attention to the Supreme Court in recent years. In addition to invalidating Montana’s discriminatory scholarship program, the Court in 2022 found that Maine violated the Constitution when it excluded religious schools from participating in a voucher program for rural students. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, described the situation perfectly: “The State pays tuition for certain students at private schools – so long as the schools are not religious. This is discrimination against religion.” Much more mindful of recent Supreme Court precedent, St. Isidore and the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to review the matter. The Court will hear oral argument on April 30.
Just as excluding religious schools from scholarships and vouchers is an unconstitutional form of religious discrimination, so too is categorically denying an otherwise qualified religious school from charter school certification simply because they are religious.
This Supreme Court has made clear time and again that the failure to respect religious freedom in education is odious to the guarantees of the Constitution. Although some local school boards and state officials seem to be ignoring this, parents of faith are not willing to put up with it any longer. And now, finally, it seems that they have the support of the most powerful institutions in the land.
