This column provides a brief review of its history and the Supreme Court’s opinions. The column then reflects on Mahmoud’s meaning while offering suggestions for SBOs and their teams to consider as they work to implement its rationale.
Background Facts
Controversy arose at the start of the 2022-23 school year in Montgomery County, Maryland’s largest district, when officials added storybooks with LGBTQ+ themes and materials on transgender issues to its English language-arts curriculum.
A group of parents challenged materials, including Pride Puppy!, the only text expressly approved for use with three and four-year-olds in pre-K and Head Start classes. The book portrays a family whose puppy gets lost at a LGBTQ+-pride parade, devoting a page to each letter of the alphabet, celebrating Pride Day.
A related assignment directed children to locate words such as “[drag] queen,” “king,” “leather,” and “lip ring.”
The parents also objected to materials “include[ing] stories about a same-sex marriage, a transgender child’s rainbow-colored wig, and elementary school students replacing girl/boy bathroom markers with non-binary signs.”
An interfaith coalition of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish parents filed suit disputing educators’ refusal to allow them to excuse their young children from instruction using the materials with which they disagreed due to their religious beliefs.
After the federal trial court rejected the parental claim that officials violated their due process rights, the Fourth Circuit affirmed in favor of the board on the basis that officials did not violate the parents’ First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. The parents then appealed to the Supreme Court, which reversed in their favor.
…Mahmoud has the potential to reshape public school curricula if education leaders can balance parental wishes and the educational needs of all students in their districts.
Supreme Court Judgment
In a six-to-three judgment authored by Justice Alito, joined by Chief Justice Roberts, Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, the Supreme Court ruled that by denying the parents’ requests to opt their children out of instruction inconsistent with their religious beliefs, officials violated their free exercise rights.
Justice Alito largely grounded the Court’s analysis in 1925’s Pierce v. Society of Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus and Mary and 1972’s Wisconsin v. Yoder, cases addressing parental rights. In Pierce, the Court not only upheld the rights of non-public, including faith-based, schools to exist but also declared that “the child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”
Alito relied even more on Yoder, in which the Supreme Court agreed that Amish parents did not have to send their children to school after the eighth grade because this would have violated their religious beliefs, as their young received all of the education they needed in their communities.
The Yoder Court acknowledged that the parental right “to guide the religious future and education of their children” was “established beyond debate.”
Similarly, in Mahmoud, the Court concluded that “[t]he Board’s introduction of the ‘LGBTQ+-inclusive’ storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt outs, places an unconstitutional burden on the parents’ rights to the free exercise of their religion.”
Justice Thomas agreed with the Court but concurred separately to explain why he thought the board’s actions violated the parents’ rights.
Justice Sotomayor’s dissent, joined by Justices Kagan and Brown, argued that “’[s]imply being exposed to beliefs contrary to your own’ does not amount to prohibiting the free exercise of religion.”
Reflections and Suggestions
Mahmoud is noteworthy because it upheld the Supreme Court’s 100-year-old precedent from Pierce, buttressed by 1972’s Yoder, recognizing parental rights to direct the education of their children, especially when dealing with curricular matters to which they object based on their deeply and sincerely held religious beliefs.
At the same time, Mahmoud has the potential to reshape public school curricula if education leaders can strike a balance between parental wishes and the educational needs of all students in their districts.
On the one hand, the Supreme Court reiterated that parents have the right to direct the upbringing of their children. On the other hand, it remains to be seen how far parental input can extend and what it means in practice, particularly in balancing their interests against the curricular and educational needs of all students.
While Mahmoud upheld parental curricular objections based on religion, it will take time to understand the parameters of their objections. In other words, while the parents in Mahmoud were objected successfully to sexuality education for their young children under their free exercise rights, it will take time to see how Mahmoud might apply a topic of seeming perennial concerns involving religion over the origins of humankind in debates over evolution versus the Biblical accounts of creation in biology and perhaps other courses. Other questions may arise regarding content, such as how to address political topics in history and social studies classes.
In Mahmoud’s wake, and to take proactive steps to avoid controversy, SBOs and leadership teams may want to consider creating advisory committees to seek input from parents and community members when addressing sensitive curricular topics, such as those related to sexuality. These committees could provide oversight to ensure that students receive instruction on a wide array of issues in a manner that is both age- and educationally appropriate.
In seeking input, though, SBOs and their teams must act carefully to avoid affording parents unfettered veto power over curricula with which they disagree. While conceding that it may not be possible to please all parents, obtaining input in advance on sensitive topics should help head off controversy and facilitate smoother school-community operations.
Moving forward, although Mahmoud continues to uphold parental rights, this does not mean that SBOs and their teams must relinquish control over school curricula. By working more closely with parents, SBOs can form partnerships to support all children in learning by developing curricula that everyone can contribute to.