Free Exercise Clause Rights to Opt Children Out of Public School Lesson That "Substantially Interfer[e]" with Their Children's "Religious Development"

[1.] The Supreme Court has been debating the meaning of the Free Exercise Clause for over 60 years. One view has been that the Clause generally gives religious objectors a presumptive right to be exempted from generally applicable laws, such as from bans on using peyote, requirements that one provide one's child's social security number to get various welfare benefits, requirements to provide certain health insurance to one's employees, and anything else that might conflict with one's religious beliefs.

This right was just a presumption, which the government could rebut if it has a strong enough reason. And indeed the presumption was often found to have been rebutted, in cases involving draft laws, tax laws, antidiscrimination laws, child labor laws, and more. But the presumption, though not very strong, was broad: It applied to a wide range of religious practices. Historically, that view had been associated mostly with the liberals on the Court, such as Justices Brennan and Marshall. The leading precedent here was Sherbert v. Verner (1963), written by Justice Brennan.

The opposite view has been that the Clause only forbids discrimination targeting religious believers or practices (such as laws that ban religious animal sacrifice but allow virtually identical secular killing of animals, or laws that exclude religious schools from various benefit programs that are offered to secular private schools). Historically, that view had been associated mostly with the conservatives on the Court, such as Justice Scalia and Chief Justice Rehnquist. The leading precedent here was Employment Division v. Smith (1990), written by Justice Scalia.

Curiously, the ideological polarity on this matter has flipped in recent years, with the Court's conservatives generally endorsing the traditional Brennan/Marshall view, and the liberals generally endorsing the Scalia/Rehnquist view. It looked, from cases such as Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021), like there were at least five votes on today's Court to bring back the broad-exemption-rights view.

But in today's Mahmoud v. Taylor, the conservative majority took a different approach: Rather than discussing government actions that interfere with religiously motivated behavior generally, it focused on a particular kind of government action—educational rules that substantially interfere with parents' ability to "direct the religious upbringing of their" children. And while this is just a narrowly defined Free Exercise Clause right (focused just on interference with religious upbringing), the protection appears to be quite strong.

In this respect, the right recognized here is structurally similar to another narrowly defined Free Exercise Clause right, seen in cases such as Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC (2012) and Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru (2020)—there, a right of religious institutions to choose their religious leaders and religious teachers, free of antidiscrimination rules. That too was a narrow right, focused on one particularly important facet of religious life; but it was a strongly protected right, within this narrow scope.

[2.] Mahmoud involved the Montgomery County (Maryland) Board of Education's decision to "introduce[] a variety of 'LGBTQ+-inclusive' storybooks into the elementary school curriculum," with no possibility of parental opt-out. According to the evidence cited by the majority, "These books—and associated educational instructions provided to teachers—are designed to 'disrupt' children's thinking about sexuality and gender," and to inculcate particular beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity:

As one email sent by MCPS principals reflects, the Board selected the books according to a "Critical Selection Repertoire" that required selectors to review potential texts and ask questions such as: "Is heteronormativity reinforced or disrupted?"; "Is cisnormativity reinforced or disrupted?"; and "Are power hierarchies that uphold the dominant culture reinforced or disrupted?" …

A few short descriptions will serve to illustrate the general tenor of the storybooks. Intersection Allies tells the stories of several children from different backgrounds, including Kate, who is apparently a transgender child. One page shows Kate in a sex-neutral or sex-ambiguous bathroom, and Kate proclaims: "My friends defend my choices and place. A bathroom, like all rooms, should be a safe space."  Intersection Allies includes a "Page-By-Page Book Discussion Guide" that asserts: "When we are born, our gender is often decided for us based on our sex …. But at any point in our lives, we can choose to identify with one gender, multiple genders, or neither gender." The discussion guide explains that "Kate prefers the pronouns they/their/them" and asks "What pronouns fit you best?" (boldface in original). [Several other examples omitted. -EV]

Several parents challenged the refusal to provide an opt-out, because they viewed those positions as contrary to the religious beliefs that they were trying to teach their children. To focus on the lead plaintiffs,

Mahmoud and Barakat are Muslims who believe "that mankind has been divinely created as male and female" and "that 'gender' cannot be unwoven from biological 'sex'—to the extent the two are even distinct—without rejecting the dignity and direction God bestowed on humanity from the start." Mahmoud and Barakat believe that it would be "immoral" to expose their "young, impressionable, elementary-aged son" to a curriculum that "undermine[s] Islamic teaching."  And, in their view, "[t]he storybooks at issue in this lawsuit … directly undermine [their] efforts to raise" their son in the Islamic faith "because they encourage young children to question their sexuality and gender … and to dismiss parental and religious guidance on these issues."

[3.] The Court identified parents' right to direct their children's religious upbringing, relying mostly on Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972):

Under our precedents, the government is generally free to place incidental burdens on religious exercise so long as it does so pursuant to a neutral policy that is generally applicable. Employment Division v. Smith…. [But] in Smith, we recognized … that the general rule did not apply in Wisconsin v. Yoder because of the special character of the burden in that case…

Yoder concerned a Wisconsin law that required parents to send their children to public or private school until the age of 16. Respondents … were members of Wisconsin's Amish community who refused to send their children to public school after the completion of the eighth grade. In their view, the values taught in high school were "in marked variance with Amish values and the Amish way of life," and would result in an "impermissible exposure of their children to a 'worldly' influence in conflict with their beliefs."

In response, this Court observed that formal high school education would "plac[e] Amish children in an environment hostile to Amish beliefs … with pressure to conform to the styles, manners, and ways of the peer group" and that it would "tak[e] them away from their community, physically and emotionally, during the crucial and formative adolescent period of life." "In short," the Court concluded, "high school attendance … interposes a serious barrier to the integration of the Amish child into the Amish religious community."

In Yoder, … there was no suggestion that the compulsory-attendance law would compel Amish children to make an affirmation that was contrary to their parents' or their own religious beliefs. Nor was there a suggestion that Amish children would be compelled to commit some specific practice forbidden by their religion. Rather, the threat to religious exercise was premised on the fact that high school education would "expos[e] Amish children to worldly influences in terms of attitudes, goals, and values contrary to [their] beliefs" and would "substantially interfer[e] with the religious development of the Amish child."

That interference, the Court held, violated the parents' free exercise rights. The compulsory-education law "carrie[d] with it precisely the kind of objective danger to the free exercise of religion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent" because it placed Amish children into "an environment hostile to Amish beliefs," where they would face "pressure to conform" to contrary viewpoints and lifestyles.

As our decision in Yoder reflects, the question whether a law "substantially interfer[es] with the religious development" of a child will always be fact-intensive.  It will depend on the specific religious beliefs and practices asserted, as well as the specific nature of the educational requirement or curricular feature at issue.

Educational requirements targeted toward very young children, for example, may be analyzed differently from educational requirements for high school students. A court must also consider the specific context in which the instruction or materials at issue are presented. Are they presented in a neutral manner, or are they presented in a manner that is "hostile" to religious viewpoints and designed to impose upon students a "pressure to conform"?

And the majority extended this principle beyond just a right to be excused from compulsory education (as in Yoder) to a right to potentially opt out from particular topics within a public school:

Due to financial and other constraints, … many parents "have no choice but to send their children to a public school." As a result, the right of parents "to direct the religious upbringing of their" children would be an empty promise if it did not follow those children into the public school classroom.

{[W]hen the government chooses to provide public benefits, it may not "condition the availability of [those] benefits upon a recipient's willingness to surrender his religiously impelled status." … Public education is a public benefit, and the government cannot "condition" its "availability" on parents' willingness to accept a burden on their religious exercise.} …

[4.] The majority concluded that the school's mandatory curriculum "substantially interferes with the religious development of [the challengers'] children and imposes the kind of burden on religious exercise that Yoder found unacceptable":

Like many books targeted at young children, the books are unmistakably normative [in support of certain views about same-sex marriage and about gender identity]…. These books carry with them "a very real threat of undermining" the religious beliefs that the parents wish to instill in their children…. That "objective danger" is only exacerbated by the fact that the books will be presented to young children by authority figures in elementary school classrooms. As representatives of the Board have admitted, "there is an expectation that teachers use the LGBTQ-Inclusive Books as part of instruction," and "there will be discussion that ensues."

The Board has left little mystery as to what that discussion might look like. The Board provided teachers with suggested responses to student questions related to the books, and the responses make it clear that instruction related to the storybooks will "substantially interfer[e]" with the parents' ability to direct the "religious development" of their children. In response to a child who states that two men "can't get married," teachers are encouraged to respond "[t]wo men who love each other can decide they want to get married …. There are so many different kinds of families and ways to be a family." If a child says "[h]e can't be a boy if he was born a girl," the teacher is urged to respond "that comment is hurtful."  If a child asks "What's transgender?", it is suggested that the teacher answer: "When we're born, people make a guess about our gender …. Sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong." …

{[We thus] cannot accept the Board's characterization of the "LGBTQ+-inclusive" instruction as mere "exposure to objectionable ideas" or as lessons in "mutual respect." … We similarly disagree with the dissent's deliberately blinkered view that these storybooks and related instruction merely "expos[e] students to the 'message' that LGBTQ people exist" and teach them to treat others with kindness.} …

[The dissent] suggests that the parents in this case have no legitimate cause for concern because enforcement of the Board's policy would not prevent them from "teach[ing] their religious beliefs and practices to their children at home." … According to the dissent, parents who send their children to public school must endure any instruction that falls short of direct compulsion or coercion and must try to counteract that teaching at home. The Free Exercise Clause is not so feeble….

[5.] Finally, the majority provided strong protection for this religious exemption right, by treating it as quite difficult for the government to overcome:

To survive strict scrutiny [applicable under this facet of the Free Exercise Clause], a government must demonstrate that its policy "advances 'interests of the highest order' and is narrowly tailored to achieve those interests." In its filings before us, the Board asserts that its curriculum and no-opt-out policy serve its compelling interest in "maintaining a school environment that is safe and conducive to learning for all students….

We do not doubt that, as a general matter, schools have a "compelling interest in having an undisrupted school session conducive to the students' learning." But the Board's conduct undermines its assertion that its no-opt-out policy is necessary to serve that interest…. [T]he Board continues to permit opt outs in a variety of other circumstances, including for "noncurricular" activities and the "Family Life and Human Sexuality" unit of instruction, for which opt outs are required under Maryland law. And the Board goes to great lengths to provide independent, parallel programming for many other students, such as those who qualify as emergent multilingual learners (EMLs) [about 1/4 of Montgomery county students] or who qualify for an individualized educational program [about of 1/8 of students]. This robust "system of exceptions" undermines the Board's contention that the provision of opt outs to religious parents would be infeasible or unworkable….

Nor can the Board's policies be justified by its asserted interest in protecting students from "social stigma and isolation." … [T]he Board cannot purport to rescue one group of students from stigma and isolation by stigmatizing and isolating another. A classroom environment that is welcoming to all students is something to be commended, but such an environment cannot be achieved through hostility toward the religious beliefs of students and their parents….

Several States across the country permit broad opt outs from discrete aspects of the public school curriculum without widespread consequences. And prior to the introduction of the "LGBTQ+-inclusive" storybooks, the Board's own "Guidelines for Respecting Religious Diversity" gave parents a broad right to have their children excused from specific aspects of the school curriculum. These facts belie any suggestion that the provision of parental opt outs in circumstances like these "will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools." …

I hope to have more about this case soon. (Among other things, Prof. Justin Driver and I filed an amicus brief urging the opposite result from the one the majority adopted, and I'll want to say a bit more about that.) But for now, I just wanted to quickly explain what the Court held and why.

Eric Baxter (Becket Fund) argued on behalf of the challengers, and Sarah M. Harris (U.S. Solicitor General's office) argued in support of the challengers on behalf of the federal government.

Comments

[John F. Carr]

I feel like free exercise law is inconsistent because there is no general right to challenge crazy government policies. A claim has to assert an enumerated right. When judges think the government has gone too far they hammer a square peg into a round hole.

"emergent multilingual learners (EMLs)"

I missed a turn of the euphemism treadmill. When I was young we had ESL. Now the term in my area is ELL. Maryland is ahead of us.

[Malika the Maiz]

The ELL is English Language Learners I’m guessing. I wonder what percent of such students are not Spanish to English Learners?

[Supremacy Claus]

As far as nature is concerned, the sexual deviates are more impaired than a person in a wheelchair with intellectual disability, who wants to have sex. The purpose of life is reproduction. No matter their achievements, the deviates are 100% impaired, according to nature.

This educational program is to normalize highly disabling disorders, in a propaganada campaign. It is to make the deviates falsely feel better. The other aim is to attack the family, by normalizing non-reprodutive intimate relationships. These deviate intimate relationships have killed tens of millions of people by horrible diseases for thousands of years.

Early elementary kids don't know much. They trust adults, and will believe anything, like Santa Claus. They are easy prey to these deviation propagandists. Children also imitate. So these lessons will spread a contagion of sexual deviation. The number of trans kids has exploded after these deviate propraganda campaigns.

Volokh and Driver apparently supported the deviates and their propagandists in his amicus brief. They argue that the Free Exercise Clause does not require student-specific opt-outs from public school curricula, even when parents object on religious grounds. The brief emphasizes that the Court’s existing precedents already strike a careful balance between religious freedom and the government’s interest in providing a uniform, inclusive education. Allowing broad opt-outs could lead to an unworkable patchwork of exemptions. It could undermine democratic decision-making in public education. It risks turning curriculum design into a battleground for ideological disputes. These are ridiculous compared to the great damage done by this deviate indoctrination. They also take education time from teaching reading, writing and arithmetic.

This lawyer denier is a danger to our kids.

[Malika the Maiz]

Not what I asked about Bonkers Behar.

[Supremacy Claus]

I just used your answer to place my comment high in the order. You stink, I do not reply to you.

[Malika the Maiz]

He said, replying! What a goof.

[Rossami]

And that admission that you abuse the commenting process puts you over the top and into the mute list. Bu-bye.

[Supremacy Claus]

I have no control over the stupidity of comment branching at Reason.

[Randal]

At least this way the bigots have to identify themselves. Also: the teachers can say anything about those kids they want to while they're not there. I would have Gay Story Hour every day if I worked in that district. Maybe the opt-out kids can be identified with wristbands. Rainbow wristbands.

[Supremacy Claus]

Why the hostility towards kids avoiding bullying, control, indoctrination, and conversion by sexual deviates with mental disorders? The consequence is a tripling in child mutilation. This is from insurance claims data. Multiply by 10 for the real impact of this campaign.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-data/

[wvattorney13]

Nah. They should wear stars pinned to their shirts.

[Krayt]

"Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another."

[John F. Carr]

In Massachusetts half speak Spanish first. Portuguese comes next. About a third of ELL students are coming from other languages. I saw Haitian Creole on the list. Data from the "data dashboard" link at https://www.doe.mass.edu/ele/.

I know a boy who goes to a diverse school in Brooklyn. They have 9 widely spoken non-English languages: Arabic, Haitian Creole, Hindi(?), Urdu, French, Spanish, Korean, Russian, Chinese. I put a question mark after Hindi because it's one of the languages of the Indian subcontinent written with a continuous horizontal line and neither I nor my computer's OCR has any idea which.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

The courts have also been pounding square pegs into the free speech round hole for a long time.

In all cases, it's because the courts have long treated the 9th and 10th amendments as embarrassments. If a right is not enumerated, it's second class at best. Except abortion and gun rights, where it was more convenient to reverse them.

Economic freedom? Doesn't exist, but we need to protect topless dancers, so let's call that expressive and put it under the free speech tent.

Right to keep kids free from government indoctrination? No such thing, but if we can find a religious angle, we can torture freedom of religion into covering it.

[Sarcastr0]

Economic freedom?
What rights do you want to see that aren’t currently recognized?

I do tend to agree the 9th is treated as dead letter far too much.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

All minimum wage laws for a start. Zero excuse.

Same for overtime laws, union favoritism (you can quit to go on strike and prevent your employer from hiring a replacement?), business permits (as shown by the irregular example of kids selling lemonade).

Occupational licensing is none of the government's business and has always been implemented to restrict practitioners and raise wages. It offers less protection than private certifications would; look how hard it is to disbar incompetent lawyers, and how easy it is to disbar the politically disfavored. How many people actually look at certificates hanging on doctor's walls?

If you can't think of more example on your own, you aren't trying very hard.

[Sarcastr0]

The Lochner era was a much less free time for everyone who didn’t own a company. Life was cheap.

I can think of plenty of examples, but economic rights do not operationally provide more choices to people.
And you ignore all other aspects of freedom.

You would use rights to make society more oppressive to working people. Perverse.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

More freedom is more oppression?

I do not think you know what those words mean.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes. Turns out there are more way to be unfree than via government regulation.

De facto Jim Crow if you don’t want to look up bakers in the 2930s.

[bye]

If you can find a religious angle you expose your hate via it.
Plus you make a serious primal logic error. Religous freedom is the first of all freedoms for the Founders and esp in view of people like you who would be very comfortable with Government-as-God. They knew about you.

[SRG2]

Religous freedom is the first of all freedoms

Not mentioned in either the Declaration of Independence, nor in the original Constitution. I'm sure you can find some pretend historian to claim otherwise of course.

[Krayt]

Feel free to suggest that original Constitution was intended to give men the power to step all over religion, or speech.

Indeed, fears that might happen lead to enumeration just in case.

To this day, we deal with motivated sophistry to abridge enumerated freedoms. Some Founding Fathers didn't want enumeration, not that they didn't agree on these as rights, but because they feared future politicians would assert these were the only rights.

Today's issue doesn't even fall under that concern of laxity in clarity. It's just a frontal assault on enumerated rights.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Cases involving the Contract Clause, Takings Clause, due process when property is involved, searches and seizures of property, major questions involving economic matters (student debt, etc.), and more have dealt with economic freedom.

Economic matters also have been put under the free speech tent. Commercial speech is protected. Donating to campaigns and other things is protected. SCOTUS had a case noting rules about credit card statements, or some such, was a free speech matter.

Schools teach things. Parents aren't forced to send their children to public schools. They aren't prevented from saying what they learn there (including whatever Florida or Texas is teaching these days) is wrong. If a school 'indoctrinates' a child showing interracial people being happy, a parent can tell them to ignore it.

[John F. Carr]

As I understand the decision, the school is allowed to demand that the parents claim a religious objection. "Stop grooming my children!" would not be good enough.

In some states parents can opt their children out of mandatory vaccinations, but they have to state that their objection is religious in nature. A fear that their children might die or get autism is not good enough.

[Brett Bellmore]

Indeed, the problem here isn't that the school is indoctrinating students with views some religious minorities find objectionable. The problem is that the school is indoctrinating students with views parents, religious AND secular, likely find objectionable.

And deliberately; While not mentioned in the OP, this particular content had been excluded from a pre-existing policy of letting parents know what the books being read would be.

So, prof, you're going to defend the right of schools to deliberately subvert parental rights?

Seriously, the public schools need to go away. Just abolish them.

This is just another example of what I've said before: The only reason we NEED religious liberty in the first place is that we are unfree: In a free society, religion wouldn't need special treatment, we'd all be similarly free regardless of the nature of our motives.

[Sarcastr0]

Gay marriage exists. If that interferes with your religion your religion is going to encounter lots of problems.

This will get silly before it gets smoothed out.

[Brett Bellmore]

The school was not teaching that gay marriage exists, and if you read the OP you already knew that.

[Sarcastr0]

I read the book in question online. That is the extent of what the book says.

You as I recall think school was fine when you were in it. You just think heavy regulation if not abolition in the name of freedom is needed now.

Standard MAGA age group destructiveness.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Did you read the parts quoted above? The parts providing moral justifications rather than simply saying it exists, the parts rebuking the students who dared ask why?

[Sarcastr0]

No. I’m highlighting a specific book, “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding.’

If that’s enough to trigger out out, and it seems to be, things will get very silly.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Yes to the first part: you think you can restrict the discussion to just the book and ignore the guidelines that went with it and were part of the decision.

Yes to the second part: you have always been very silly to think such transparent clothes support your arguments.

[Malika the Maiz]

Clothes?

[Stupid Government Tricks]

I don't think even you are dumb enough to believe that people are dumb enough to think you don't understand the reference.

[Joe_dallas]

Sacastro - you are misrepresenting the underlying theme of the book. Its doing considerably more than teaching the same sex marriage exists.

Its also telling that you have to misrepresent the book in order to justify the school's policy.

[Supremacy Claus]

Gay marriage is a lawyer fiction. It is a friendship. Marriage is to keep a male in the family to raise children. Any other purpose is just the nightmare without any benefit or justification. Gays are intelligent and have above average assets. Their average income is $42000 more than hets. They understand that marriage is a way for the lawyer to plunder their assets. Very few have fallen for that stupid lawyer trap, after decades of gay marriage in Europe (8% vs 50%). Any productive male that gets married today is a self defeating fool. His assets will get plundered to enrich the lawyer profession. The lawyer has killed the American family. The female is highly paid by the lawyer to destroy the family, the life of the male, and assets. Tyrants on the family court bench can never be held accountable. The local Sheriff once said on the radio, the reason for the metal detector at the court is the Family Court. People are sent around the bend by it.

[SRG2]

Marriage is to keep a male in the family to raise children. Any other purpose is just the nightmare without any benefit or justification.

So you would deny marriage to a straight couple who don't want or cany have children, obviously.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Your cherry picking is shameful and dishonest.

You can be a better human if you try.

[David Nieporent]

Indeed, the problem here isn't that the school is indoctrinating students with views some religious minorities find objectionable. The problem is that the school is indoctrinating students with views parents, religious AND secular, likely find objectionable.

No, the problem is that a subset of parents are having a tantrum and want to change a policy without having to go to the trouble of winning an election.

[Krayt]

So you're fine with the side who won the election using that as justification to do whatever they want?

[wvattorney13]

The right to control the religious upbringing of your children depends on the results of no election. The Barnette case said that.

[bye]

But it is religious to not want you kids to die or be autistic. Am I wrong.

[Krayt]

Mercury was removed from vaccines, stupidly, as it had nothing to do with anything, but nevermind. Autism rates continued to climb.

The vaccines-R-bad-yo! crowd, its snake oil leaders, then had to goalpost shift. It's a fascinating study in meme evolution, as memes get altered to continue spreading among host units. The original impetus of badness is forgotten, and the item takes on a background "common knowledge" something is wrong with it, severed from the claimed cause.

[Joe_dallas]

Defense of the schools policy borders on perverted sickness.

These age kids dont have the capacity to understand.
The exhibits to the opinion showed the books had themes more advanced than the typical pg13 movie, granted they were cartoon pics, but the subtle themes was very advanced for 5-10 year olds .

you dont teach kids playing t-ball to throw out the lead runner when they dont have the arm strength to throw the ball to the closest base.
You dont teach algebra to kids that havent started learning the multiplication tables
Most parents dont take their 5 year olds to a pg movie, much less a pg13.

This case should not have needed to be decided based on religious freedom.
Absolutely nobody should believe the curriculum is appropriate for that age group.

[David Nieporent]

These age kids dont have the capacity to understand.
The exhibits to the opinion showed the books had themes more advanced than the typical pg13 movie, granted they were cartoon pics, but the subtle themes was very advanced for 5-10 year olds .

bookkeeper_joe continues his habit of referring to things he hasn't read as if he were an expert in them. The exhibits showed no advanced "themes" ("subtle" or otherwise) at all. It was literally nothing more than that "gay people exist."

[Joe_dallas]

David provides another example of a leftist intentionally misrepresenting the underylying theme of the books to hide his embracement of teaching a topic that is inappropriate for that age child.

[wvattorney13]

It has been pointed out repeatedly and even in the appendix to the opinion itself that the curriculum goes well beyond noting the fact of the existence of gay people. It portrays these relationships in a positive light which is contrary to the teachings of all major world religions for millennia.

These is not contrived ideas or people coming up with wild theories. These are mainstream religious ideas being attacked and done so on very young children over the objections of their parents.

[cannpro]

Terrible decision. I fail to see how the school interfered with the parents' right to direct their children's religious upbringing. The parents are free to continue their religious upbringing however they like. What they really want is to shield their children from contrary views. Do parents have the right to shield their kids from the existence other believes? Do Christian’s parents have the right to demand others keep their Jewish, Hindu, or atheistic beliefs away from their children? Parents have no constitutional right to demand others keep their kids in an echo chamber, kept ignorant of differing viewpoints.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

It's a coercive government school. The parents have to pay for it, via taxes. If they want to send their kids to a private school or homeschool them, they still have to pay for the now-unused public school.

Coercion. Makes a difference.

[cannpro]

Everyone has to pay for public school. It has nothing to do with religious liberty.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, yeah: It's as much secular oppression as it is religious.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett still very oppressed.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Sarcastr0 still very silly in such transparent clothes.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

No shit sherlock. Coercion is coercion.

Funding schools for all kids is easily separated from running schools. Yet public school fanatics recoil in horror from the idea of vouchers, showing that their concern is universal indoctrination, not education. The US had high literacy rates before public schools, and most of the arguments in favor of government schools were explicitly to indoctrinate children in the American way. Remember the laws requiring teaching students in English only?

Indoctrination is at the heart of public school fanatics. Not education.

[Malika the Maiz]

In 1870 20% of Americans 14 and over were illiterate, 79% of blacks were, By 1979 that fell to .6 and less than two percent, respectively.

https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Nice, and what is it now? I wouldn't be surprised if their definition of literacy is limited to knowing the alphabet song.

If you actually believe that .6%, you're a bigger fool than Sarcastr0.

[Malika the Maiz]

Do you have any evidence of your initial claim to offer?

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Read the news? Do you? Remedial classes in college? High school graduates who are functionally illiterate?

You claimed above to not understand the transparent clothes joke. What kind of piss poor education did you get?

[Joe_dallas]

yes big improvement since the 1800s. However very noticable decline since the 1960's.

Harvard ( or is it yale) that has HS remedial courses

[David Nieporent]

Harvard ( or is it yale) that has HS remedial courses

It does not. As always, some right winger social media account told a lie, and stupid people believed it: Harvard recently introduced what one might call a "remedial" calculus class. Not what anyone would call "remedial math" in any other context.

[Joe_dallas]

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/9/3/new-math-intro-course/

Non - important David gets caught lying again.
"The Harvard Math Department will pilot a new introductory course aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills among students, according to Harvard’s Director of Introductory Math Brendan A. Kelly."

Thats a pretty good description of remedial math

[David Nieporent]

The US had high literacy rates before public schools,

No, it didn't.

[Cheerio]

"Do Christian’s parents have the right to demand others keep their Jewish, Hindu, or atheistic beliefs away from their children?"

No, so long as the school isn't conveying that any of those beliefs/lifestyles are GOOD or BAD. (The books in question here took a position on that aspect...)

[bye]

But that is the opposite of what the actual parents were saying. They want children taught their religion first. Do you teach children in grammar school French and German while they are learing English ???
You are contradicting the parents --- and that obviously since I don't think you are ignorant enough to say that Christian parents have no idea what Judaism is, for example. LUDICROUS

[Stupid Government Tricks]

The parents and their lawyers had to take that line to get the courts to recognize their rights. This is the judiciary we have, like it or not.

[Cheerio]

I just said that I would be fine with children learning about all sorts of other beliefs...so long as a public school is not taking a position on what is true/good/right.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

A school might have a class that discusses different types of religion. Storybooks are part of the class.

They can have pictures of Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, etc., practicing their religions. Pictures of them celebrating festivals, eating different foods, etc.

Parents who think Muslims are anti-God are upset. They think the school is providing a positive view of Islam. It's against their religion. They demand that their children not be exposed.

The books here are comparable. They also expose children to different people, lifestyles, and ideas.

[Rossami]

The books here were not particularly comparable. Nor was the school board's actions.

Note the pattern of events.
1. School board changes the curriculum.
2. School board provides notice and allows opt-outs.
3. Not just a couple but hundreds of parents call to exercise their opt-out. Given the size of the school, that is a sizeable percentage of their total enrollment.
4. Rather than recognize that such widespread disagreement might be an indication that the change was a mistake, the board doubles-down and withdraws the notice and the opt-out option.

These are school board members elected by and theoretically accountable to the community. In what way does that behavior show good judgement or foster trust?

[David Nieporent]

These are school board members elected by and theoretically accountable to the community. In what way does that behavior show good judgement or foster trust?

It doesn't. But that doesn't a constitutional claim make.

[wvattorney13]

In the case outlined, it does. It shows that the board understood the issue that the new curriculum would cause in the religious community and realized that accommodation was the best policy/may be required.

But once they realized how much dissention they caused, they chose to evince a hostility towards the religious parents instead of taking any other possible course of action.

That's a Masterpiece Cake problem.

[wvattorney13]

Each case turns on its own facts. The idea of religious tolerance is basic to our society. Acceptance of homosexuality not too much. It is clear in your example that the school is not trying to convert anyone to Islam. They are trying to convert children to believing that homosexuality is acceptable---which is contrary to ALL major religions.

Different facts, different results.

[Malika the Maiz]

Would a book about a heterosexual having a happy wedding be advocating for heterosexuality and therefore a proper one for students of parents who think heterosexuality is limiting or whatever to have their kids opt out?

How about a book about the Lovings, Bob Jones type parents get to have their kids opt out?

[John F. Carr]

How about a book about a pair of gay men who get AIDS and die? It would be widely condemned as inappropriate for elementary school children. That is not the constitutional test. The book teaches a secular lesson about disease and risky behavior. If you want to distance your children from it you need to show it's against your religion.

Set in modern times, with AIDS deaths way down from their peak in the 1990s, the book would need to explain that the couple skipped their PrEP. A double moral lesson about avoiding risky behavior and taking your medicine.

[Cheerio]

"a book about a heterosexual having a happy wedding"

If you could truly show sincere religious objection, then it is not the place of the state to correct you...

"a book about the Lovings"

It would be very sad indeed to object to something like that, but people have to get there on their own. Even good messages should not be forced.

[wvattorney13]

AFAIK, there is no sincere belief whether religious or otherwise that heterosexual marriage is a bad thing. You are striking at the air for some reason.

As far as interracial marriage, again teaching the Loving case is not advocating for a cause nor is mentioning that despite a lot of opposition at the time today few people believe that interracial marriage is immoral. Adding "and if your parents think otherwise, they are terrible people" is unnecessary to the teaching.

And further a parent would have to show that they had a genuine religious objection to that teaching and how that fit into the strict scrutiny analysis.

[wvattorney13]

Right.

Okay: Uncle Bobby can legally marry a man, a woman, or nobody as he chooses.

Not Okay: And there is nothing wrong with him marrying a man/It is evil if he marries a man.

[Sarcastr0]

Not allowed: it’s okay for this thing that exists to exist.

That’s some deep denial y’all are insisting on.

[wvattorney13]

I don't know how these semantics games are helping your side. You take each case as it comes to you. When the government is teaching something contrary to every major religion in the world, it is reasonable to make accommodations for religious parents. It is clearly not a subterfuge much like Yoder wasn't.

This is vastly different than trying to make it an edge case like teaching evolution which is a factual contention that has widespread acceptance even among religious people. I personally would let parents opt their children out of evolution class, but I believe that it is clearly distinguishable.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Why do you think you have the right to instill your values in other people's children?

[dwshelf]

"Differing viewpoints" make good sense in high school, when presented as "differing viewpoints" rather than "alternatives are anti-social".

When "differing viewpoints" are advocacy of an anti-religious theme, suggesting that religious views are anti-social, they're repugnant in 1st grade.

[bye]

NO, there is a semantic and logical fallacy there. You don't even have the concept of 'differing' until the child has the solid training in what it is that the others differ FROM

Parents are right and illustrate in their own persons what is right. A good education, knowledge of other viewpoints AFTER there is something right and true that they know and to which something else can be considered 'differing"

You learn fullly Euclidean geometry and then maybe non-Euclidean. YOU NEVER learn non-Euclidean first

[bye]

NO, it is the opposite , your fallacious reasoning will be obvious to most readers

1) You have your obvious view on your children, why should it be everyone else's ???

2) In every subject it is the case...the contrary view that 2+2=5, the US was founded in 1899, electrons all weigh 2 pounds

3) Those parents know everything you said they are shielding the kids from: They know other religions, Jewish , Catholic, Hindu --- it is impossible that you are right that they are the first in the line of their family to want this !!!! What they want is things in order...you don't have calculus before addition and subtraction, you don't have classical history before US History -- and you don't confuse kids about religion by feeding tons of undigested views before they understand their own religion !!!!!

[Rossami]

Yes, your ignorance of how people you disagree with actually think is obvious. Your 'failure to see' does not automatically make your position right.

Flip the polarity of your own comment. What right do you have to force other people's kids into your own echo chamber?

[David Nieporent]

What right do you have to force other people's kids into your own echo chamber?

Nobody forced these kids to attend that school. But once the parents chose to send their kids to that school, they had to take whatever the school offered: that the earth is round, that evolution is real, that the confederates were traitors in defense of slavery, that 2+2 is 4, that the germ theory of disease is real, that Shakespeare is worth reading. Regardless of what those parents want their kids to hear.

[Joe_dallas]

That is a complete prick comment that you know is only true at the margins - its a public school and most families cant afford to pay for private school and the kids are generally only allowed to the schools in the district in which they reside.

[Joe_dallas]

Cannpro that is absolute BS - its not exposing kids to contrary views, its exposing kids to what amounts to perversion for that age group.

[Mike45]

The school's authority over the kids should be subservient to the parent's authority in all cases. It comes from the doctrine of "In Loco Parentis".
Parent's should have the ability to opt out of any part of the curriculum they find objectionable.
We opted out of the formal school system in the 1990's and homeschooled our kids. They have done just fine since, validating our decision.

[Sarcastr0]

Nice you have the income and free time to homeschool. Properly done, it can do great things for a kid.
It can also be abused to turn out twisted weirdos who can’t do math.

But America is a land of you do you, so you do you. Just don’t insistent your decision is universally superior and everyone else must make the same decision.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

No one said anything like that. When you invent claims like you routinely do, do you ever feel a sense of shame?

If not, you should.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Vouchers. The education industry hates them, because they get around government indoctrination. The perfect litmus test to differentiate statists from simple do-gooders.

[Malika the Maiz]

You don’t think maybe they dislike them because it’s less funding for the places they work?

[Stupid Government Tricks]

It's the same amount of overall funding, and the same number of overall students. Do government teachers have some sort of Sarcastr0 right to working at government schools?

[Malika the Maiz]

But you clearly think that they would lose some students and hence funding, yet you claim it must be imposing their will that they want not the concern over the funding which would be the more natural reason.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

What part of "overall" was too complicated a concept for your government-indoctrination reading classes?

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't believe you're stupid enough to think that was his point.

[EllaWilson]

America is back in charge! Greatest SCOTUS ever!

[Cheerio]

The school could've avoided this whole mess with just a bit of grace and tolerance towards traditionalists. But alas, they're obsessed with branding them as bigots.

The cultural left should take a lesson from the preamble of the (bipartisan) bill Congress passed a couple years ago, codifying Obergefell:

"Diverse beliefs about the role of gender in marriage are held by reasonable and sincere people based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises. Therefore, Congress affirms that such people and their diverse beliefs are due proper respect."

That's literally all it took to get several moderate-to-conservative republicans on board. Just a bit of mutual, reciprocal respect.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The dissent quoted a guidance if a student says that gay and lesbian activities are against their religion:

“I understand that is what you believe, but not everyone believes that. We don’t have to understand or support a person’s identity to treat them with respect and kindness. School is a place where we learn to work together regardless of our differences. In any community, we’ll always find people with beliefs different from our own and that is okay—we can still show them respect.”

Doesn't sound like they are calling people who have different views "bigots." Sounds like they provided respect.

Public schools are about a diverse group of students coming together and learning together. It involves sharing with each other the diversity present. The books here provide that.

Other books can show other types of people, including (as books usually did) more traditional type materials.

What is the path now? Any group can now opt-out from mere exposure of ideas they don't like and understand? The "cultural left" will be able to opt-out from things deemed too conservative.

The Respect for Marriage Act protects different types of marriages. Parents still can teach their children different religions. They can send their children to non-public schools or home school.

If they do send them to public school, it includes teaching about the diversity of society.

[wvattorney13]

As has been said several times in this thread, there is nothing wrong with teaching kids "about" same sex marriage or transgenderism. This case does not allow an opt out for that.

The school can even teach that both are good and wonderful. What they cannot do is force parents to have their kids listen to how good and wonderful the school believes they are if the parents object on religious grounds.

In the other threads your side advocates for a parental right to mutilate children, but you don't believe they should be able to control their religious upbringing?

[Cheerio]

"The school can even teach that both are good and wonderful. What they cannot do is force parents to have their kids listen to how good and wonderful the school believes they are if the parents object on religious grounds."

And even that is more than what's allowed in the other direction...

[Cheerio]

So then, what if one of the books was about a traditional Muslim/Catholic/etc. family who had *traditional* views on gender and sexuality? Would that be okay too, or would that be "condoning bigotry" or some such?

[Bunny495]

The elephant in the room so many are terrified to talk about is so many taxpayers don't think they are getting their monies worth from public schools. Performance at grade level is shockingly bad. In some big cities high school graduates are functionally illiterate. To many both primary and secondary schools are little more than government run day care centers.

One of my hobbies is astronomy and I have invested in what is called a HA telescope which only admits light in the Hydrogen Alpha wavelength (basically what you see is those all red images of the sun's surface with CMEs and proms). My local astronomical society does outreach to local schools and I was in a ninth grade class talking to students after they viewed the sun through my camera attached to the telescope. Lets keep in mind this was an advanced general science class. I was discussing the 1859 Carrington Event and mentioned Carrington's side gig was making bets at Lloyds of London based on how sunspots and weather affected agricultural production. One kid in the front row perked up and started quickly taking notes, on a sadder note some girls in the back row were resting their heads on the arms on the desk seemingly nodding off.

So riddle me this Batman, how many students actually understand much more than there are boys and girls and fail to grasp the ideas that this is not the whole story.

[wvattorney13]

Right. In addition to failing to teach the basics to my kids they are trying to do what is in my view something that is affirmatively harmful to their moral upbringing. If they just did a bad job at teaching, I could supplement that, but I now have to do two things: 1) teach my kids, and 2) undo the indoctrination to the political left.

If they were merely only poor at teaching, perhaps I could live with that. Vouchers and other school choice measures will make cases like these unnecessary as we watch public schools wither on the vine.

[Malika the Maiz]

I’m interested in the overlap between people who cheer this decision and also support the recent TX and LA laws to have a specific version of the 10 Commandments posted in all K-12 school building rooms.

[wvattorney13]

The Ten Commandments have a historical component in addition to the religious one. If the teacher is telling the class not to be a Hindu and points at the 10C poster, then that would be a problem.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Curiously, the ideological polarity on this matter has flipped in recent years, with the Court's conservatives generally endorsing the traditional Brennan/Marshall view, and the liberals generally endorsing the Scalia/Rehnquist view. It looked, from cases such as Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021), like there were at least five votes on today's Court to bring back the broad-exemption-rights view.

Many liberals today agree with John Paul Stevens, who joined Oregon v. Smith, especially after seeing how things have gone in the last few decades.

Also, Fulton is a telling example. There is a difference between an individual asking for an exemption and an institutional and governmental function involved there.

Likewise, many of the conservatives are asking for exemptions in cases of public accommodation and harms to third parties. See also, Brennan's concurrence in Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Amos (draws line at non-profits).

[wvattorney13]

For years the left has implicitly or sometimes explicitly stated that a belief in a positive view of same sex marriage or gender identity is NOT merely a view or belief. It is an absolute truth to be taught.

The biggest part of this decision is that it conclusively, as a matter of law, puts that demand to rest. Same sex marriage might be legal, trans surgery might be legal, but it is still within the bounds of reasoned debate, not a matter of truth, to believe in polite society that either or both of those things are wrong.

Parents do not have to accept their children being indoctrinated into left leaning thinking.

[Josh R]

I don't think as a matter of law this ruling says boo about whether anything is within the bounds of reasoned debate. It only says parents can opt out if they have a religious objection to anything taught in public schools, even hard facts like fossil records (see my comment below on Eugene's amicus brief).

[Stephen Lathrop]

Missing from the cited analysis is strict scrutiny in favor of the right of all children—regardless of gender—to attend a public school free of ideological bias against them. Pro-MAGA administrators across the nation trumpet ideological bias against gender non-conformity as a legitimate public power, and even a virtuous one.

More covertly, those same administrators flout IDEA funding requirements for non-neurotypical learners, and not infrequently for students with physically-imposed learning impairments. There is no strict scrutiny applied against those kinds of discrimination.

Asymmetries of that sort—where secularly-based educational policy gets legal short shrift, while religiously-based policy gets powerful legal protection—define Constitutionally prohibited religious establishment. To establish religious practice in general, to the detriment of secular practice in general, is not less an establishment of religion than to tax the populace to support a particular state-approved religion. It is not preferable to establish all religions, instead of just one.

Religiosity in general is being defined by strict-scrutiny legal practice as superior to secularism in general. That creates a public inequality terrifying and damaging to children who remain secularists. It pressures them by law to enroll in religion—a result devoutly prayed for by pro-religionists.

It is thus a flaw in the court-created notion of strict scrutiny to conclude it provides superior protection for Constitutionally enumerated rights. It cannot do that except at the expense of the Constitution's pervasive protection of a principle of secular equality.

When I say, "cannot," I do not mean, "ought not." I mean imposing strict scrutiny on behalf of religious protection is paradoxical. The way strict scrutiny is now practiced necessarily disparages secular equality, and cannot do otherwise. It was to avoid that tendency that the founders made the 1A's guarantee against establishment of religion the very first provision of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

[wvattorney13]

The problem in your analysis is that you have a far too expansive view of what constitutes an establishment of religion. That expansive view causes you to reach a conclusion that the government may hamper the free exercise of religion.

[Rossami]

A "public school free of ideological bias against them" could be far more easily be met by focusing on reading, writing and arithmetic and walking back from all these 'values lessons' that aren't in a public school's proper mandate in the first place.

[Joe_dallas]

Missing from the cited analysis is strict scrutiny in favor of the right of all children—regardless of gender—to attend a public school free of ideological bias against them.

That is correct - But that is not what the school policy was. The policy had a very anti religious bias, a very anti age appropriate curriculum. It takes a serious level of perverted sickness to defend teaching the subject for that age group of children.

[Josh R]

Our mish-mash of a Free Exercise doctrine stems from Scalia trying to distinguish Verner and Yoder rather than overrule them in Smith. But perhaps that just reflects the continuing split in what the doctrine ought to be and we should continue to expect a less-than-satisfying patchwork.

[Josh R]

As Eugene pointed out in his amicus brief, this decision will require an opt out when parents have a religious objection to:

Science courses that reference elements of evolutionary theory, including the “Big Bang Theory” and “fossil record[s]

[Brett Bellmore]

I may think parents would be foolish to want to opt out from this or that, but what the wisest choice is, is a different question from who is entitled to MAKE the choice.

The real problem is the government running it's own schools. They're a bad idea for roughly the same reasons government run churches are a bad idea: We don't want government to have that sort of control over the views of the next generation of citizens!

[SRG2]

FWIW now that the Lemon test is history, rather than seeing parents opting out of science education, we will see school boards opting out - either through simply not mandating the teaching evolution, or outright promoting creationism, in whatever garb it appears (traditional Creo, Intelligent Design, etc.)

[wvattorney13]

I think the analysis is different when one is teaching scientific facts versus a political opinion. Further the strict scrutiny analysis would be different. You could argue that a particular flat earth sect could remove their children from hearing all references to the earth being round.

That seems misplaced and an attempted gotcha. There are worlds of differences between the two.

[Josh R]

The Court held that strict scrutiny applies in your hypo. Please explain how the state prevails?

[Cheerio]

The court left room for schools to show if/when an opt-out would truly be a problem. Lessons on evolution may or may not meet such a threshold.

But as they well explained, an opt-out was very doable in THIS case, which raised the reasonable inference that impermissible coercion efforts were in play.

[Josh R]

The only room left for the schools I found in the opinion was "in having an undisrupted school session conducive to the students’ learning." Refusing opt outs on lessons on evolution would not meet that standard.

[bye]

Josh, do you even know the facts

https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-in-my-opinion-using-creation-and-evolution-as-topics-for-critical-thinking-exercises-eugenie-scott-69-47-42.jpg
check her background , this is a famous quote/case

This is a woman as pro-evolution as can be , shutting down any discussion !!!
Teach evolution and let critics come into the classroom, Then you will see interest . I promise.

All this is a result not of what you think, but of shutting down real education on what most students care about, which is religion and politics widely defined. I've been a college teacher for 10 years.

[Martinned2]

It's almost as if you can get whatever answer you like if you're in charge of how the question is formulated!

[bye]

https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-in-my-opinion-using-creation-and-evolution-as-topics-for-critical-thinking-exercises-eugenie-scott-69-47-42.jpg

This is due to logic/rhetoric being no longer taught. Also grammar/language.

“Public discourse, the moment it becomes basically neutralized with regard to a strict standard of truth, stands by its nature ready to serve as an instrument in the hands of any ruler to pursue all kinds of power schemes.”
― Josef Pieper, Abuse of Language—Abuse of Power

[vaadu]

Does this enable parents if a teacher has a Pride or BLM or confederate flag in the classroom?

[bye]

But that misstates the problem...Why would you stick a Pride symbol in a classroom? To show that you approve sexual behavior of any kind in students who are in school TO LEARN