Latest news with #LGBT-inclusive
The Herald Scotland
20-07-2025
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
US researcher praises Scotland's LGBT-inclusive education
The Herald on Sunday's education writer speaks to Darek Ciszek, a Social Science and Comparative Education researcher at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) who has been studying the development and impact of LGBT-inclusive education in Scottish schools. Can you start by telling our readers a bit about your background and how an American academic became interested in Scotland's approach to LGBT inclusive education? I'm in a PhD program at UCLA in the School of Education and as I was thinking about my dissertation topic in 2022, Florida passed its Don't Say Gay law. To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. I am a former teacher as well, and I taught what would be the equivalent of lower secondary in Scotland – history in particular. When that law passed in Florida, I kind of thought back to my own experience being a teacher in the classroom and bringing up topics around inclusion. I wanted to do something about it, but I didn't quite know what to do without going to Florida and putting up a sign and starting to protest. But I realised that I could potentially do some research around inclusive education from an LGBTQ lens. So that led me to research states around the US that were hopefully going in a different direction in Florida, and I have to admit the search was very sobering. So then I decided to look a little bit wider. I did a Google search, literally, just a Google search of LGBT inclusive education around the world and different countries and things like that. And Scotland came up top of that list. And that is how you learned about Time for Inclusive Education? And at that point, I did not know anything about TIE. I did not know anything about the campaign and the policy around inclusion. I wanted to dig in a little bit more, so clicked on a few more websites which ultimately led me to a CNN or a BBC article or something and TIE was mentioned. I wanted to learn more about what was going on, what they were doing. How did they do this and what does this actually look like on the ground? So I found Liam and Jordan's emails and I contacted them and luckily they responded. We had a Zoom about a month later and I got some funding from UCLA to pursue this research and was out in Scotland that summer. Darek Ciszek (Image: Contributed) What did that first trip over here involve? What did you learn from the visit? By that point I had started to flesh out some research questions, but they were more open-ended because I really did not know what to expect. I knew I wanted to focus on implementation and see how TIE were actually rolling out the policy, and because I'm a former teacher, I wanted to know how they are supporting teachers in this process. So I got to observe some of their CPD sessions around curriculum development and was able to go to a few schools. There were a few teachers that were willing to have me interview them or, if I were back in Scotland, potentially come and observe some of their lessons. I've been out four times in total now. I ended up observing a couple of lessons at a primary school in the Greater Glasgow area. I also went up to another primary school a bit more north and was able to observe TIE's pupil workshops which really have been some of my favourite things that I've observed, not only because of the way that TIE structured it, but also because those workshops really do address some really important issues facing kids in schools around homophobia, language, stereotypes, and thinking about inclusion and diversity in a broader societal context. I went back to that school a couple of months later to observe another lesson that one of the school leaders there had crafted along with the teacher for a P7 class around inclusion. So I got to sort of see how they're implementing TIE's curriculum materials from the website that they have, for example the ready-made lessons, but how they also add a little bit of their own context and school perspective. I've been able to go to a couple of secondary schools as well. Those were more focused around like interviewing staff but I did observe a few lessons that were really interesting. These lessons have now been going on for a few years, but what was it about the learning that really stood out to you? By that point my research lens for the work had shifted more to look at how LGBTQ inclusive education helps facilitate students' social emotional learning. That really became my core question. I'm trying to gauge how the curriculum material - the actual language and the lesson plans and the selection of books - is speaking to social-emotional skills development. So for example, the workshops are fantastic for this because they use these vignettes or like scenario-based learning examples with fictional student characters. They have different scenarios with kids that are being made fun of for a variety of reasons in the school context. READ MORE Maybe it's a girl that wants to play football, and that doesn't fall within the sort of the gender stereotype for a female. Or it's a boy who's playing football and is concerned about coming out because he's gay, and how his friends and peers and teammates will react to that. When you present that material to a classroom of students you're asking them to engage in perspective-taking, to engage in emotional recognition, to develop empathy skills through those situational contexts. The wonderful thing about upper primary is that in every classroom I went into kids were just like raising their hands all the time. They just wanted to engage, they wanted to ask questions. So from what you've seen through your research, it's not as if these children, even fairly young ones, are being thrown into a topic that they're not ready for? They have quite a bit of knowledge going into that classroom to begin with from things that pick up from family and friends and social media et cetera. So it's not a blank slate in terms of information. But at least in this context, in these workshops, they had a safe, age-appropriate environment in which to engage in that conversation and have some of their questions answered with an adult, right? With an educator present. One theme that kind of bubbled up in my interviews was the secondary school staff telling me that this really has to happen at the primary level because by the time they move up it's twice as difficult – by then some of these habits and behavioural expectations, for example around what boys versus girls should be doing et cetera, are much more ingrained. With the primary school teachers that I observed, whenever they introduced a lesson that was LGBTQ inclusive, it was always in the context of a broader theme. So for example, it could be a week where they talked about different cultures. It could be building on something they talked about earlier in the year around like human rights, for example, or information about the United Nations or the Convention on the Rights of the Child. But the information wasn't so left field, so out of the blue, that the kids were like, wait, how did we get here? I could tell based on how they were asking questions, and the kinds of conversation happening at the classroom level, that this wasn't the first time that they were talking about inclusion in this context - it was just another opportunity to do it and get some more information or learn through a different book or a different kind of lesson. So is it really accurate to say that Scotland has established, and is implementing, a world-first LGBT-inclusive curriculum? Based on what I've seen, I would say it's accurate. I will caveat that a little bit though and say that I think in most cases the individuals leading the charge around this at those schools also happen to be a part of the LGBTQ community. On the one hand it makes sense to me because if I were a teacher in that context I would probably pick this up for my school and sort of be the main facilitator and coordinator, helping other teachers think about implementation, getting TIE to come out to our school, doing the CPD et cetera. But not every school in Scotland might have that individual to sort of lead the charge. And so there's an element of how do you make this more scalable and sustainable for individuals that are not a part of the community, and really do care about these issues, but for whatever reason may feel reluctant or concerned about taking that stuff on. One key thing is framing: what is the justification for LGBT inclusive education? And this is something I'm dealing with in my dissertation. There's a lot of literature out there around the justification being that it's about equality and about rights and those sorts of aspects. I totally agree, and have heard and adopted that argument for quite a long time. But I think where I'm not seeing as much focus is the social-emotional, skills development perspective. That really benefits not just LGBTQ kids who might be struggling emotionally and mentally, but also heterosexual students in terms of their own ability to engage with a diverse society. Based on your experiences, does Scotland's approach to this issue seem like something that is worth celebrating? Oh yeah, absolutely. I was just in Barcelona for an LGBTQ education conference, and it was a consortium of a whole bunch of different NGOs and non-profits, the Council of Europe, European Parliament, World Bank. What Scotland is doing is being eclipsed by the UK as a whole, and the UK as a whole is being represented by England. Not enough people around the world know what Scotland is doing. And they need to know.
The Herald Scotland
20-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Inside the ten year campaign for LGBT-inclusive education
Their campaign has been one of the most effective that Holyrood has seen, securing a victory that few thought possible, and it all started with a chance meeting back in 2014. 'I was holding a fundraiser in our local area to raise money for food banks,' Liam explains. 'Jordan had been told by a mutual friend that he should go along as they thought we might get on with each other.' That thought turned out to be correct, despite the pair's obvious differences: at the time Liam was a thirty-six year old tanker driver with a wife and a young daughter, while Jordan was a gay nineteen year old politics students at the University of Glasgow. As they got to know each other, Jordan opened up about the impact of homophobia and bullying during his time at school, the fact that such abuse was normalised, and the consequences of a total lack of representation of LGBT people in the curriculum. 'It was only when I left school that I started to learn that there had actually been a lot of other people like me throughout history,' Jordan explains. 'I read about people like Alan Turing, Sally Ride, Peter Staley, and I also learned that there was an entire rights movement too. It was through watching the documentary How To Survive A Plague, which chronicles the work of ACT UP during the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s, that I saw out, proud, confident gay people advocating for their rights and that completely changed my perspective on what it meant to be gay. 'We both watched that documentary together when we first met, and I just remember saying to Liam that if I had learned about some of my community's history at school, it would have changed how I felt about myself as a young gay person, and it would have changed the perspectives of some of my peers who thought that homophobic bullying was acceptable.' Jordan and Liam have been recognised for the effectiveness of their campaign work around LGBT-inclusive education. (Image: Time for Inclusive Education) Liam echoes those sentiments, telling me that his friendship with Jordan helped him to see that so many people – especially young people – were still suffering due to feeling that society didn't accept them: 'At that time, he was the first friend I had who was gay, and our discussions had opened my eyes to the experiences that some young people were still having in our schools with homophobia, and I had thought that we had progressed beyond that by this stage. 'When he spoke to me about the flippant use of homophobic language at his school, and the feelings of shame that caused, I realised that people like me, who aren't gay, had a role to play. I also thought about my own daughter, who was three at the time, and I knew that I wanted her generation to have a different experience at school.' For Jordan, what they were setting out to achieve was 'simply common sense education'; homophobic bullying, he says, 'has been an issue in schools for generations and needed an educational response.' At the time, they also believed that the wider social conditions that existed made change possible, presenting them with an opportunity that they couldn't ignore. 'When we first met in 2014,' Liam explains, 'it felt like the cultural and political climate was one of positivity and progress - it felt more compassionate. 'There was a lot of discussion during the referendum about creating a better Scotland and that included addressing inequality, so I thought that we would be able to successfully have a sensible conversation about homophobia in schools, and develop and deliver an educational response to this.' READ MORE The campaign began with a petition to the Scottish Parliament in the summer of 2015, followed by an emotional appearance before Holyrood's Public Petitions Committee a few months later. Despite initially expressing support for TIE's aims, the committee ultimately closed the petition in a move that attracted widespread condemnation. But support continued to grow. In February 2016, UNISON became the first trade union to offer its backing, followed by the wider STUC just a couple of months later. In the intervening period, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon publicly backed TIE during a hustings event for the 2016 election, and every major party's manifesto in the lead up to that vote made some form of commitment to inclusive education. By the spring of 2017 a majority of MSPs publicly supported the campaign and the government announced the creation of a new working group. It ultimately made 33 recommendations – all of which were accepted – in November 2018, sparking the development of new training courses, curricular resources and national policy guidelines. With the launch of in September 2021, the implementation process had begun. The changes that Jordan and Liam had hoped for in the first months of their friendship were finally becoming a reality. 'We spent a lot of time working with teachers to develop what our early educational approach and services would be,' Jordan says. 'One of them was an input with a strong focus on anti-bullying, where I share some of the experiences of homophobia that I had at school, the impact that had on me, and what helped me, while Liam discusses his perspective as someone who isn't gay, and encourages young people to consider the use of homophobic language and the impact it can have on others. 'Through those inputs, I've heard from teachers about young people who then find the confidence to open up to their teachers or parents and carers that they are experiencing bullying, or they are struggling, and they are able to get support. 'We see the very positive impact of that work and the power of hearing from someone who has overcome what is, unfortunately, a common experience for so many young people, and the hope that can provide them.' Liam agrees, arguing that their engagement work in schools, and the data they have gathered, means that they 'know that the outcomes for those young people have changed for the better.' But it's not just the LGBT children and their families who are benefitting: 'While we directly address homophobic bullying in schools, it also actually plays a role in addressing other forms of prejudice-based bullying and helping young people find the confidence to discuss issues that they are experiencing with teachers, and get that support they need. 'I also know that there are a lot of young people who aren't LGBT themselves who have developed a better understanding of the impact of homophobia and changed their behaviours towards others in their year groups. That's what motivates me, and the rest of our team, because we know how life changing that can be.' Ever since the campaign began, the scale of the task being undertaken and the number of people needing help has left little time for reflection, but as the tenth anniversary has approached, Jordan and Liam have been encouraged to think about the impact they have had. 'I can see with hindsight just how much progress has been made,' says Jordan. 'When we started our work, we didn't have a clear and considered programme for addressing LGBT-related prejudice in schools through education, and now there is national guidance, a policy framework, resources, and a professional learning course. 'Another significant change for me has been more cultural - there is now a willingness, across education, to discuss and address homophobia in schools with confidence, and there is an understanding that this is about ensuring all pupils and families are included at school.' TIE secured cross-party support for LGBT-inclusive education in schools. (Image: Time for Inclusive Education) Those broader changes are also important to Liam, who recounts a story from the early days of their work in schools: 'I remember a teacher we worked with telling us in 2016 that there were same-sex parents with a child at their school, and the parents felt that they had to make a decision about which one of them would be visible at the school for parents' evenings or sports days because they were worried about their child being bullied. That story always stuck with me as a parent because my child was going to school at that same time and those were not considerations for our family - and it should not have been for that family either. 'We have been able to see some full circle moments in relation to this, because we have been working with an academic from University of California, Los Angeles for an independent evaluation of the impact of our work, and one of their key findings has been the effect that this work has on children who have same-sex parents - with teachers observing that those children feel more confident and comfortable to discuss their family dynamic in class after the school has begun integrating this learning into their curriculum. 'No child should feel excluded or ostracised simply because of who they are, or because of their family dynamic - and that's why simple representation like a same-sex family in a storybook, during ordinary learning, can be so important and meaningful.' At a recent event to mark the tenth anniversary of TIE, speakers and other guests talked about the way in which inclusive education has been changing lives for the better, and reflected on the scale of Jordan and Liam's extraordinary achievements. But they also spoke about what comes next – a conversation that quickly turned to the need to protect the progress that has been made, with former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon saying: 'There are people coming for TIE right now in Scotland.' Host Susie McCabe, who is also a patron of the charity, repeated that message. She told the audience to 'drink and dance and have a great time' before adding: 'But tomorrow we go again. We have work to do.' A decade ago, the campaign for LGBT inclusive education had to overcome misplaced concerns that Scotland simply wasn't capable of, or ready for, such a change, but actual opposition was largely limited to a handful of fringe organisations and individuals; today it is facing attacks from a far larger cohort featuring hate groups and conspiracy theorists, but which also includes apparently respectable commentators, columnists and politicians. Jordan believes that although much progress has been made, a changing cultural climate has seen LGBT topics and education initiatives 'being weaponised and misrepresented to fan the flames of prejudice for political and ideological reasons.' 'If we look at America, we can see the effect of dangerous and false narratives that children are being 'groomed' at school, or encouraged to transition by 'woke' teachers, and it is very rooted in conspiratorial language, which ultimately attempts to disrupt trust in educational institutions and uses LGBT people to do it. We can see that rhetoric imported from US culture wars is here too, especially online, and it is utterly detached from the reality in schools.' Liam adds that the work being carried out by TIE will also have to be adapted to meet the new challenges of 'radical misogyny, the mainstreaming of so-called manosphere and incel language across social media platforms, and how this is normalising old prejudice in a new way.' 'The teachers that we employ to deliver our education services noticed changes in how prejudice was manifesting in schools, and there was this sentiment of 'cool to be cruel' that is really not disconnected from the change in climate and discourse that Jordan has spoken about. That led to us collaborating with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) - international experts on hate speech, disinformation, and extremism - to develop the Digital Discourse Initiative, a new resource for schools to help them directly address this. 'That will be a key focus for us moving forward, making sure that we are adapting and providing solutions to new manifestations of prejudice, online hate in this instance, and continuing to work with experts to provide schools and teachers with solutions that can protect children and young people. That includes those on the receiving end of hateful or prejudicial behaviours, but also those acting on emotive propaganda that is designed to anger them and is targeted at them through algorithms that promote sensationalist content.' READ MORE But despite those regressive cultural changes, and the increasingly complex challenges they face, Jordan and Liam remain committed to ensuring that young people in Scotland get to experience an education system that makes them feel welcomed, included, and loved. Organisations like the EIS, STUC and Scottish Government support inclusive education in schools, and evidence shows that the same is true of parents. 'As parent,' Liam says, 'I think we are fortunate to live in a Scotland that has a world-leading approach to addressing homophobic bullying, one that recognises it's time to break the generational cycle of normalised prejudice in schools. 'When I speak to other parents and carers across the country, both in my personal life and through this work, I hear overwhelming support for this kind of common sense education, and recent polling reflects that too. 'I want to protect my daughter from prejudice and hate in any of its forms - and I know that's what most parents want as well.' For Jordan, who has spoken openly about being driven to suicidal thoughts during his teens, the success of TIE means that many young people now have the support and acceptance that he never found at school: 'While we didn't expect to still be around after ten years, I know the impact that this work would have had on me at school, and I see the impact that it has today for many young people and their families. 'With all of the resources and support available for schools, teachers today have the opportunity to make sure that every young person is included and reflected in their education, and that really can be life-changing.'
The National
17-07-2025
- Politics
- The National
Scotland's progress on LGBT+ education cannot be taken for granted
Ten years ago, Jordan Daly, a 19-year-old university student, and Liam Stevenson, a 36-year-old petrol tanker driver, launched one of the most successful grassroots campaigns this country has ever seen. A movement that would change Scotland's education system forever and cement Scotland as a pioneer in equality legislation on the world stage. The campaign was born in 2015 with the simple but revolutionary demand that LGBT identities, histories and issues be taught in Scottish schools, a normalised and visible part of every child's learning. A way of tackling prejudice at a formative age by preventing it from developing. Tie argued that when it comes to prejudice, prevention is better than cure and education has the unique power to transform attitudes early on. Tie knew exactly what it wanted and how to get it. READ MORE: Lesley Riddoch: No-one gets to broadcast for the BBC without having its outlook They didn't have a political machine behind them, or institutional weight of any kind – nor the financial means to underpin their vision – just the audacity to believe that things could be different. The grassroots talent and determination to build something better for the young people of Scotland. Powered by hope, Tie came to be. In 2015, I was on the board of the Young Scots for Independence when our convener at the time, Rhiannon, met Jordan. She immediately presented the policy idea to our youth conference where it was passed and adopted as one of our official policy positions. We campaigned hard and with the help of Liam and Jordan, Tie started to become a talking point within the SNP. In the spring of 2016, we presented the campaign to national conference. My first-ever conference speech was on my unwavering belief in Tie. An attempt to convince the wider SNP membership of why it should be a priority. It worked – conference passed the resolution and we got back to work, bringing a second and more refined policy to party conference the following year. By this time, Tie was no longer just a few grassroots activists making a noise, it was a movement, and it was gaining ground with every passing week. After much lobbying, Tie was announced as a policy objective in Nicola Sturgeon's Programme for Government. Fast forward a decade and in 2025, Scotland stands as the first country in the world to embed LGBT-inclusive education across the national curriculum. It quite literally put Scotland on the map. It's emotional to look back and see how far Tie has come since those early days when we were parading around conference with multi-coloured ties printed on our T-shirts. To reflect on how far Jordan and Liam have come – two men whose optimism and devotion to a better world have been a beacon to me for the past 10 years – and all of the lives they have changed simply because they dared to. But anniversaries are also moments for reflection, and there's pain to acknowledge among all the achievement. The world around us has changed since 2015 and in many ways, not for the better. When Tie launched, discourse around LGBT inclusion was in a much better place. It wasn't without its opposition of course, otherwise Tie would never have been a necessary campaign, but LGBT equality was almost an inevitable element of social progression back then. In the years since, driven primarily by a transphobic moral panic, an ugly resurgence of anti-LGBT rhetoric has gained traction. READ MORE: Donald Trump is now trying to silence UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese Rhetoric that is rearing its head not only on the fringes of opposition but in our parliaments, classrooms, social media feeds, justice system, healthcare settings. The same tired tropes of Section 28 are being dusted off and repackaged; concerns of protecting children, outcries about parental rights and indoctrination. It's a tale we have been told before and the fact that it has been so able to seep back into public acceptance is all of our shame. It's not just a Scottish problem. The widespread rollback of LGBT rights is under way across the globe. In Hungary, laws have been passed to ban the promotion of LGBT topics in schools. In parts of the US, teachers now face penalties for acknowledging the existence of queer people and LGBT books are being removed from libraries, banned from being read. It would be naive to think that we are protected from similar rollbacks here. With the threat of Nigel Farage looming, and a more hostile environment for LGBT people – particularly the trans community – than has been seen in decades, things are incredibly fragile here too. This is the hostile environment in which the legacy of Tie now lives and has to move through. I can speak from personal experience; I have been abused online for supporting Tie and I know of the abuse others involved have had to endure as well. I'm not talking about a strongly worded comment here or there. I'm talking about being labelled a danger to children, doxxed, families harassed. READ MORE: Edinburgh to host free festival on Scotland's colonial past, languages and gaming This space has become frightening, but it makes Tie's success all the more extraordinary, and its mission all the more of a necessity. Young LGBT people in Scotland still face disproportionate levels of bullying, mental health difficulties and isolation. For trans and non-binary youth in particular, the atmosphere has become dangerous. Public discourse about their lives is increasingly dominated by misinformation and cruelty – and the need for Tie is more apparent than it has ever been. Inclusive education is not about being 'woke' or meeting diversity targets or indoctrinating children. It's about making sure that the next generation grows up knowing that being LGBT isn't shameful or controversial, it's a human experience like any other. There's a despair that comes with realising the battles you thought you were winning are still being fought. But there's also power in knowing that we have done this before – and won. The Tie campaign itself is living proof that even in the face of extreme resistance and ignorance, grassroots activism works and changes lives. Tie was never just about the ins and outs of education policy. It was about rewriting the rules of who gets to belong. Who gets to be seen, heard, validated. It was about making space in the curriculum for stories that had been systemically erased so that those stories could lend a hand to Scotland's younger generations. So that they could build a Scotland free from the ugly prejudices of the past, setting an example for the rest of the world as they went. And it was about doing all of that from the bottom up, powered by ordinary people who dared to dream of a better future. That grit and commitment to justice is what made Tie not just another campaign for social change, but a blueprint for how to make change happen, and that's what we need to hold on to as Tie embarks on its next 10 years. Because if the past decade has shown us anything, it's that rights can be won – but they can also be lost. Progress isn't permanent or inevitable, and there will always be people ready and willing to come for it, given half a chance. No social progress in history has been won easily, we have to keep going. With people like Liam and Jordan heading the fight, I think we will be just fine.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Supreme Court Looks Eager to Further Undermine Public Schools
The Supreme Court signaled on Tuesday that it would side with a group of religious parents who oppose a Maryland school district's use of LGBT-themed children's books in its reading curriculum. Most of the justices in the court's conservative majority reacted with varying levels of disdain to the idea of requiring students to be exposed to such books and seemed eager to expand religious parents' ability to opt their children out of public school curriculums in general. Justice Samuel Alito referred at one point to one book where the protagonist's uncle marries another man. A lawyer representing the Montgomery County School District said the book was not coercive toward students' religious beliefs but simply recognized that same-sex marriages exist. 'I think it clearly goes beyond that,' Alito replied. 'It doesn't just say that Uncle Bobby and Jamie are getting married. It expresses the idea subtly, but it expresses the idea that this is a good thing.' Tuesday's oral arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor did not establish clearly where and how the court will draw the line when allowing parents to opt out from certain lessons. At minimum, the court's conservative justices gave few indications that they would tread lightly on public schools' ability to feature LGBT-inclusive themes in their curriculum. That could, in turn, make it logistically difficult for schools to include them at all. In 2022, the Montgomery County School District, located just outside of Washington, D.C., updated its English curriculum to address concerns that the existing materials 'did not fully reflect the diversity of [Montgomery County Public Schools] families.' After a lengthy review process involving educators, parents, and administrators, the district added five storybooks to its curriculum that involve LGBT themes. One includes a prince who fights a dragon and falls in love with a male knight; another features a child named Penelope who decides that he is a boy. The district noted in its brief for the court that the stories are not that different from other traditional storybooks 'such as retellings of Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Goldilocks.' The books are considered to be at an appropriate reading level for pre-K students through fifth graders. The school initially allowed parents to opt out of the lessons where the books would be included. That became unworkable when significant numbers of students and parents declined to include their students, some for religious reasons and some for non-religious reasons. Midway through the 2022–23 school year, the district ended the policy because of the logistical hurdles it caused for teachers and administrators. A group of Christian and Muslim parents immediately sued to have it restored. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected their motion for a preliminary injunction last year, noting that the parents 'do not show anything at this point about the Board's decision that affects what they teach their own children.' In its ruling, the three-judge panel emphasized the 'threadbare' nature of the record before them. None of the materials filed by the parties, it said, had any details 'about how any teacher or school employee has actually used any of the storybooks in the parents' children's classrooms, how often the storybooks are actually being used, what any child has been taught in conjunction with their use, or what conversations have ensued about their themes.' The panel noted, however, that there was also no evidence 'that the parents or their children have in fact been asked to affirm views contrary to their own views on gender or sexuality, to disavow views on these matters that their religion espouses, or otherwise affirmatively act in violation of their religious beliefs.' It also noted that the district's assistant superintendent had said that 'no student or adult is asked to change how they feel about these issues.' As a result, the panel voted 2–1 to deny an injunction. That defeat prompted the parents to turn to the Supreme Court. 'The question here is whether that right is infringed when a public school compels elementary schoolchildren as young as three to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality in violation of their parents' religious beliefs—without notifying their parents or allowing them to opt out,' the plaintiffs claimed in their brief for the court. 'To ask that question is to answer it.' They pointed to the 1972 case Wisconsin v. Yoder, which they read to recognize a First Amendment right to 'substantially interfere with their religious development.' Alan Schoenfeld, who argued for the school district, urged the justices not to embrace the plaintiffs' far-reaching theory. He noted that Yoder dealt with a much different set of circumstances: namely, a group of Amish families who wanted to withdraw their students from public schools after eighth grade and continue their education through vocational work at home. 'Adopting [their] view of the case would conscript courts into playing the role of school board, a task for which this court has recognized they are ill suited,' he said in his opening remarks. 'And a constitutional requirement to provide opt-outs from anything someone finds religiously offensive would mean public schools must find alternative classrooms, supervision for young students, and substitute lessons each time a potentially offensive topic arises.' The court's conservative members did not blanch at that prospect. 'I guess I am a bit mystified as a lifelong resident of the county how it came to this,' Kavanaugh remarked at one point during Baxter's argument. He suggested broadening the court's legal test from whether the school district's actions amounted to 'coercion,' which would be a tall order in this case, to whether the actions amounted to a 'burden' on the plaintiffs' First Amendment rights, which would be a much lower threshold for these plaintiffs to meet. Kavanaugh also suggested that the court had a duty of sorts to intervene. Schoenfeld noted offhand that the Montgomery County School Board was 'democratically elected,' which the justice apparently interpreted as a dig against the court. 'You've mentioned a few times that the school board was democratically elected and being on the school board is a hard job,' he commented. 'We all respect that. But that can't be the end of it, right? We're here to protect liberty and the Constitution from the democratic excess.' Finally, Kavanaugh framed the issue as one of 'religious liberty' that stretched back to Maryland's founding in the colonial era. 'Maryland was founded on religious liberty and religious tolerance, a haven for Catholics escaping persecution in England going back to 1649,' he noted at one point. Kavanaugh then described Montgomery County as a 'beacon of that religious liberty for all these years' and told Schoenfeld that he was 'surprised' that 'this is the hill we're going to die on, in terms of not respecting religious liberty, given that history.' Some of the questions appeared to be driven by conservative media hyperbole rather than the factual record. Justice Neil Gorsuch asked at one point about a since-withdrawn book that featured a woman with purple hair wearing a leather jacket. 'That's the one where they are supposed to look for the leather and bondage, things like that, right?' he asked Schoenfeld. 'It's not bondage,' Schoenfeld quickly replied. 'A sex worker?' Gorsuch continued. 'It's a woman in a leather jacket,' the lawyer insisted. The only justice more hostile to the school district than Kavanaugh was Alito, who appeared to take personal offense to the idea that a Maryland school would feature LGBT-inclusive books in its curriculum. 'So suppose a school says we're going to talk about same-sex marriage, and same-sex marriage is legal in Maryland, and it's a good thing, it's moral, it makes people happy, same-sex couples form good families, they raise children,' he said at one point, with a faint undertone of sarcasm. 'Now, there are those who disagree with that,' he continued. 'Catholics, for example, they disagree with that. They think that it's not moral, but they're wrong and they're bad and anybody who doesn't accept that same-sex marriage is normal and just as good as opposite-sex marriage is not a good person.' What if the school teaches that to students, he asked Schoenfeld, who agreed that it would be coercive. Alito also aired some grievances toward the Supreme Court bar in general, hinting that they were elitist and out of touch. 'You've got to send your children to school,' Alito snarked at one point. 'You can't afford to send them to any place except the public school, unlike, you know, most of the lawyers who argue cases here. They can send their children to private schools, and they think that that's the way most of the world is. But it's not. It's just too bad.' The court's three liberal justices, who were clearly outgunned, tried instead to find limiting principles to the plaintiffs' arguments. Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked about the line between when exposure to a fact or idea becomes coercive or violates one's religious beliefs. 'Is looking at two men getting married, is that the religious objection?' she asked Eric Baxter, who represented the plaintiffs. 'Again, it would depend on the individual beliefs of the clients,' he replied. 'For example, many parents would object to their child being exposed to something like pornography or extreme violence.' That answer drew a subtle rebuke from Sotomayor. 'We're not going to go there, counsel,' she warned, before re-asking her question. 'Our objections would be even to reading books that violate our clients' religious beliefs,' Baxter said. That may sound defensible in theory but would be nightmarish in practice. A friend-of-the-court brief filed by the National Education Association noted that navigating an expansive rule for opt-outs would have highly disruptive effects for educators and administrators as they try to develop a curriculum for students in a pluralistic American society. The organization also warned that it could have a divisive and harmful effect on other students. 'Consider, for example, how a student with same-sex married parents might react when told that references to the mere existence of families like his are so objectionable that several of his fellow classmates must leave the room,' the organization told the court. 'Or how a Jewish student might feel when she is required to bring home a note alerting parents that lessons on her religious heritage could be offensive and offering alternative learning arrangements for the children of objecting parents.' A ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would be in keeping with the Roberts court's general approach to religious freedom cases, where it tends to be highly sensitive to claims and sharply hostile to government organizations on the other side. Tuesday's oral arguments did not give a clear impression of where the justices will draw the line. A decision is likely to come by the end of June when the court's term traditionally ends. That would give parents and educators at least the rest of the summer break, at minimum, to wrestle with the fallout.
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Sue 'em all.' Transgender Ohioans need to take fight to court. Letters
Re "'It's like saying the world is round:' Ohio GOP wants state to recognize only 2 sexes,' April 7: 'Ohio Republicans want to take a page from President Donald Trump and require the state to recognize only two sexes,' reported Haley BeMiller (''It's like saying the world is round:' Ohio GOP wants state to recognize only 2 sexes,' April 7). Earth, of course, is no round ball, but a spheroid with equatorial bulge and polar flattening. If I were a transgender American injured or even seriously inconvenienced by the State of Ohio or by any sports organization, school system, employer or public accommodation, then I would consult legal counsel about suing the offender. In my opinion as an honorably discharged U.S. Army Legal Specialist, such litigation requires consideration of three times the U.S. Supreme Court upheld trans rights. In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (2023), the High Court repeatedly upheld state LGBT-inclusive anti-discrimination laws. See also: J. Eric Peters, "A very good year for LGBTQ+ Americans and 303 Creative," Philadelphia Gay News, Aug. 2, 2023. In Williams v. Kincaid, SCOTUS let stand (2023) an appellate ruling (2022) that the Americans with Disabilities Act covers gender dysphoria. In a landmark civil rights case, Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia (2020), the Supreme Court found in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Sue 'em all, and let God sort them out. Joseph Eric Peters, Columbus This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio attacking trans people like Trump. Time to fight back. | Letter
