Should evangelical parents be allowed to opt-out their children’s participation in public school lessons they find objectionable, and how far should those objections be allowed to go?
These are some of the key questions debated at the U.S. Supreme Court April 22 in the case Mahmoud v. Taylor, which pits parental rights against approved curriculum in a large Maryland public school district.
The Alliance of Baptists joined Americans United for Separation of Church and State and 10 other religious groups in a brief supporting the Montgomery County Board of Education.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty represents a group of conservative parents who object to their children potentially being exposed to storybooks they say “push one-sided ideology on gender and sexuality.”
Unlike existing provisions in many school districts where parents may opt out of entire classes — like sex ed — the Maryland parents want to remove their children from being exposed to certain books within a class setting. The district has said such micro opt-outs are impractical.
The alternative is for all children to be exposed only to storybooks the conservative parents agree are acceptable.
Rachel Laser
“This case is an underhanded attempt to strike books and classroom lessons that don’t align with Christian nationalist views from local public school districts,” said Rachel Laser, president of Americans United. “A handful of vocal parents with anti-LGBTQ religious beliefs do not get to dictate what appears in public school classrooms and libraries. This case is part of a broader Christian nationalist agenda to impose a narrow set of religious beliefs on America’s schoolchildren. We urge the U.S. Supreme Court to reject Becket Fund’s scheme to undermine public education and church-state separation.”
On the other hand, the Becket Fund argues the books approved for use in K-five classrooms in Montgomery County “champion controversial ideology around gender and sexuality.”
Eric Baxter
“In this country, we’ve always trusted families to decide when their kids are ready for sensitive topics,” said Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket. “Children shouldn’t be forced into conversations about drag queens, pride parades and gender transitions without their parents’ permission. Today, we fought for common sense and parents’ right to guide the upbringing of their children.”
In its brief, Americans United countered: “It would harm religious freedom if the U.S. Supreme Court accepts the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty’s rationale and requires public schools to implement an infeasible opt-out system for parents with religious objections to elements of the curriculum. School administrators will be more likely to remove any lessons, books or materials that could be challenged, resulting in public school curricula structured around the religious beliefs of some parents at the expense of others — especially for families from minority religions or who are nonreligious.”
While all six of the high court’s conservative justices appeared willing to rule in favor of the parents and against the school board, Tuesday’s debate exposed differences in degree and kind as to how this should be done.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Baxter, representing the parents, got into a protracted discussion about at what point the alleged “coercion” of children occurs — is it the mere presence of the objectionable book on a shelf? Is it seeing the pictures in the book? Is it the reading of the book?
During this exchange, Sotomayor raised an illustration about one of the books in question that shows two male mice — who look identical — getting married.
Asked if that image is coercive, Baxter spoke instead about children being exposed to “pornography or extreme violence.”
Asked again about whether seeing an image of two male mice getting married crosses the line for his client parents, Baxter replied: “Our objections would be even to reading books that violate our clients’ religious beliefs. … Their faith teaches, for example, they shouldn’t be exposed to information about sex during their years of innocence without being accompanied by moral principles.
“Our objections would be even to reading books that violate our clients’ religious beliefs.”
“And, here, we have both books that violate their moral principles and instruction that tells them that, for example, they can pick their pronouns based on the way they feel, not even just for — based on their gender but how they feel from moment to moment.”
Justice Elena Kagan pressed Baxter on how far parents should be allowed to object to public school content.
“Does it matter what the subject matter is?” she asked. “Does it matter what the age of the child is? Does it matter what the nature of the instruction is? If so, how does it matter?
“Or, in the end, is what you’re saying: When a religious person confronts anything in a classroom that conflicts with her religious beliefs or her parents’ that — that the parent can then demand an opt-out?”
Baxter replied that the opt-out is what his clients want.
Kagan returned: “So this is a rule that applies as well to a 16-year-old in biology class, (and) … the parents say, ‘I don’t want my child to be there for the classes on evolution or on other biological matters which conflict with my religion.’ It would apply just as well to that?”
Baxter replied yes.
A full transcript of the oral arguments is available here.
Based on the overall tone of the hearing, analyst Ian Millhiser wrote for Vox: “The court could decide the Mahmoud case very narrowly, ruling in favor of the parents … without handing down a broader rule that would impose unworkable disclosure rules on every public school in the country.”
He added: “While there seems to be little doubt that the school district will lose the Mahmoud case, it is possible that it will lose in a way that doesn’t endanger public school instruction throughout the United States.”
Writing for the Deseret News, Kelsey Dallas explained: “Three words came up again and again during Tuesday’s debate: coercion, exposure and burden. All three were used as the justices attempted to sort out whether the storybooks actually interfere with parents’ religious freedom rights or if, instead, the parents are being too sensitive about references to LGBTQ issues.”