Latest news with #MahmoudvTaylor
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court says parents can pull kids from classes with LGBTQ-themed books
The facade of the U.S. Supreme Court, covered with scaffolding for construction, on April 22, 2025, the day arguments were heard in Mahmoud v. Taylor. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters) This story originally appeared in Maryland Matters. The U.S. Supreme Court handed a victory Friday to Montgomery County, Maryland, parents who object, for religious reasons, to the school system's use of LGBTQ+-themed books in classrooms, saying parents should be allowed to opt their children out of such classes. The 6-3 ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor sent the case back to lower courts for a full hearing, but the majority left little doubt where it stands on the issue, with Justice Samuel Alito writing for the court that the parents have 'shown that they are very likely to succeed in their free exercise' of religion claims. 'The Board's introduction of the LGBTQ+-inclusive' storybooks into the literature curriculum, along with its decision to deny opt-outs as it does for other topics, 'places an unconstitutional burden on the parents' rights to the free exercise of their religion,' Alito wrote. 'The Board should be ordered to notify them [parents] in advance whenever one of the books in question or any other similar book is to be used in any way and to allow them to have their children excused from that instruction,' the majority opinion said. Alito was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX In a sharp, 38-page dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor — joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Kentaji Brown Jackson — said the majority's ruling would create 'chaos' for the nation's public schools, which will be required to 'provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent's religious beliefs.' Far from protecting the free exercise of religion, Sotomayor wrote, the majority 'guts our free exercise precedent' in a ruling the reverberations of which 'will be felt, I fear, for generations.' 'Today's ruling threatens the very essence of public education. The Court, in effect, constitutionalizes a parental veto power over curricular choices long left to the democratic process and local administrators,' Sotomayor wrote. 'That decision guts our free exercise precedent and strikes at the core premise of public schools: that children may come together to learn not the teachings of a particular faith, but a range of concepts and views that reflect our entire society,' her dissent said. Both Alito and Sotomayor's opinions included appendices that include pages from the books in question, including 'Uncle Bobby's Wedding' and 'Prince and Knight,' about marriages of two men; 'Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope,' about a transgender youth; and 'Intersection Allies,' which tells stories of several children, including a transgender child. The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, stemmed from a 2023 lawsuit filed by a group of Muslim, Jewish and Christian parents after Montgomery County schools introduced books for classes as early as pre-kindergarten that had stories featuring transgender or same-sex characters. When the books were introduced in the 2022-23 school year, the school system let parents who objected to the books opt their children out of classes, as they can opt children out of health education classes they find offensive, for example. But the board reversed itself in March 2023, saying students could not get out of language arts classes using the books, which the schools called part of an inclusive curriculum that also helps teach civility and respect. The schools said the books were largely incidental to the curriculum, available for students who wanted to read them. But opponents noted that some schools read the books aloud in class, or read them every day of Pride Month, and provided guidance for teachers to counter students or parents who objected. The case never got past the question of a preliminary injunction against the school system's refusal to let students opt out, with district and circuit courts both letting the school board's no-opt-out policy stand. The only question before the Supreme Court, which heard arguments in the case on April 22, was whether 'public schools burden parents' religious exercise by compelling elementary school children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality against their parents' religious convictions and without the opportunity to opt out?' The court ruled that the policy does burden free exercise rights. An attorney with the Becket Fund, which represented the parents who sued the school board, hailed the ruling as a 'victory for parental rights in Maryland.' 'Kids shouldn't be forced into conversations about drag queens, pride parades, or gender transitions without their parents' permission,' said Eric Baxter, a Becket Fund vice president and senior counsel, in a prepared statement. 'Today, the Court restored common sense and made clear that parents — not government — have the final say in how their children are raised.' The Montgomery school board and school system released a joint statement in response to the ruling. 'Today's decision is not the outcome we hoped for or worked toward. It marks a significant challenge for public education nationwide,' they said. 'In Montgomery County Public Schools, we will determine next steps and navigate this moment with integrity and purpose — guided, as always, by our shared values of learning, relationships, respect, excellence, and equity,' the statement said. Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@ SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Progressive parents in Oklahoma offer blueprint to mess with MAGA censorship
Justice Samuel Alito may hide behind stuffy robes, but the whiniest member of the Supreme Court can't hide that his personality is best summed up as 'worst parent at your kid's school.' Whether you've had children or were once a child at a public school, you know his type: the loathsome puritan who throws a fit every time he suspects a student might feel a pang of enjoyment during the process of learning. These are the parents who get Halloween costumes banned, demand that the fashionable toys be outlawed from playgrounds and, of course, want any book that threatens to be interesting enough to read banned. Unsurprisingly, Alito authored last week's 6-3 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case granting the most miserable parent in the PTA veto power over the entire school's curriculum. The case involved a school district in Virginia, where right-wing parents were abusing the 'opt-out' system meant to allow parents limited ability to take kids out of class for lessons that conflicted with the parents' religious beliefs. The school had recently added some picture books to the list approved for classroom use that featured LGBTQ characters, mostly for storytelling hours in elementary schools. Under a deluge of propaganda falsely portraying these books as sexual — which they most definitely were not — masses of parents demanded broad 'opt-out' rights of any lesson involving the books. The opt-outs spun out of control, threatening to make reading hour impossible, so the school tried to restrict the policy. But the Supreme Court's conservative majority forced the school to retain broad 'opt-out' rights for parents. Alito, who is as intellectually dishonest as he is self-pitying, tried to pretend the decision was a 'compromise.' He repeatedly misrepresented the content of the books with hysterical language. As legal analyst Mark Joseph Stern explained at Slate, Alito 'reframes these utterly innocent children's books as insidious propaganda designed to brainwash children.' The goal here is not only to reinscribe blatant homophobia into the law, but also to minimize the impact of the decision by implying it only impacts 'gay' books. But it's far broader than that, as Vox legal journalist Ian Millhiser notes. The ruling empowers 'parents who object to any form of classroom instruction on religious grounds' to demand opt-out rights — or the school to censor the material entirely. Stern continues: The problem with this request is that schools cannot possibly know, in advance, which religious views are held by which parents, and which books or lessons those parents might find objectionable. In the past, parents have sued school districts objecting, on religious grounds, to lessons that touch on topics as diverse as divorce, interfaith couples and 'immodest dress.' They've objected to books which expose readers to evolution, pacifism, magic, women achieving things outside of the home and 'false views of death.'The 'Harry Potter' books are a frequent target of ire from Alito-esque parents who think fantasy novels literally teach kids how to perform occult magic. Ironically, the author, J.K. Rowling, supports the anti-trans hysteria that helped lead to this decision. But that underscores the Pandora's box of chaos the Supreme Court, in a homophobic fit, has unleashed. Anything can be framed as a 'religious belief,' entitling parents to meddle with what's available in the classroom. In Florida, the 'Don't Say Gay' law that offered similarly broad parental complaint rights led teachers to pull all books from shelves, lest some unhinged parent declare that 'See Spot Run' offended their reading of Genesis 7:2. This was fine by Florida Republicans, who have long suspected reading leads to thinking — and eventually to voting for Democrats. However, mischief can cut in multiple directions, as parents in Oklahoma have figured out. As Judd Legum of Popular Information reported last month, progressives in the state are using a broad 'opt-out' provision to fight back against efforts to use public schools to push right-wing propaganda on students. The Donald Trump-worshipping state superintendent, Ryan Walters, has imposed a social studies curriculum teaching outright lies, such as 'discrepancies' in the 2020 election and that the U.S. was founded as a 'Christian' nation. The state also passed a law in 2024 giving any parent the right to withdraw a child from any lesson they deem 'harmful.' The legislation was intended to give right-wing parents the ability to disrupt lessons in science, history or other subjects that make Christian nationalists grumpy. But a group called We're Oklahoma Education (WOKE) is encouraging parents to use it to pull kids from classes teaching these false views of history or other lessons corrupted by right-wing propaganda. Another group of Oklahomans is also suing to block the new curriculum on the grounds of religious freedom. The lead plaintiff, Rev. Dr. Mitch Randall, explained his views: 'As a Christian, I object to Oklahoma's new social studies standards that require teachers to deceive students by presenting inaccurate information as fact.' I am but a humble journalist, and so I'm not in the business of recommending action to folks on the ground. Still, the Supreme Court's decision has opened the door for parents and activist groups in many states to take similar actions, citing religious objections to efforts by Republicans to inject right-wing propaganda into the classroom. Randall's lawsuit, which is backed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, broadly objects to teaching any religion in schools, claiming such lessons could conflict with religious views taught at home. Similar arguments could be used against states like Texas and Louisiana, which are trying to mandate the Ten Commandments on classroom walls and replace regular reading classes with Bible studies. Multiple states have also introduced 'PragerU' materials in classrooms — including video lessons containing factual inaccuracies, like Frederick Douglass describing slavery as a 'compromise' that benefited the country — even though they are merely right-wing historical revisionism full of disinformation. Lying to kids no doubt violates the religious beliefs of many liberal parents, who just got the green light from the Supreme Court to use that fact to interfere with classroom lessons. Recent history shows that the Supreme Court has regretted hasty decisions rooted in far-right ideology due to the chaos they have unleashed. In 2022, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion restraining governments from gun regulations that weren't 'consistent with' the laws of the 18th century. As people not blinded by NRA propaganda noted, this meant the law could never reflect changes in technology or social structures that have occurred in the past 250 years. Sure enough, disorder followed. Plaintiffs challenged laws restricting wife-beaters from owning guns, because beating your wife was legal in the 18th century. Others claimed they were now allowed to have military-style assault weapons, because they weren't invented in the 18th century, which means they couldn't be banned. Plaintiffs argued children should be able to own guns, like they did in the 18th century. Some argued they have a right to own machine guns. The Supreme Court has been playing clean-up ever since, using convoluted non-logic to argue that the 'no new laws since 1776' logic doesn't apply to domestic abusers or federal laws restricting deadly gun modifications. They have also quietly let states keep restrictions on assault weapons, and kept in place laws allowing federal authorities to prosecute illegal arms dealers. Thomas' fantasy America — where everyone, including junior high school kids, is packing a machine gun — was not as great as he envisioned. There were a lot of radical decisions this term that promise to create similar legal bedlam, especially one that seemingly cleared the way for Trump to deny the plain text of the Constitution granting birthright citizenship. This history of gun control decisions, however, shows the conservative justices are often not prepared to deal with the fallout from problems they create. The justices were so blinded by homophobia that they gave parents broad rights to challenge any book based on vague religious objections, without considering how that power could be used by all manner of people, including those with more progressive views. Maybe nothing will come of it. Or maybe the Supreme Court will come to regret this as one of many half-baked decisions. The post Progressive parents in Oklahoma offer blueprint to mess with MAGA censorship appeared first on
Bloomberg
29-06-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
The Supreme Court Is Right to Respect Parents' Faith
The ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor should remind public schools that they're working with parents, not competing against them. Save Here's why I think the Supreme Court might be on to something in its Friday decision allowing a group of Muslim and Christian parents to opt their young children out of public-school lessons that feature 'LGBTQ+-inclusive texts': my wife and I sent our kids to private school. How does B lead to A? Let me explain. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal
Yahoo
29-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
As a teacher, Supreme Court siding with parents' religious freedom concerns me
My first day as a high school teacher, kids were opting out of pretty much everything I asked them to do. Too tired to read, they said. Writing made their heads ache. They had beefs with whoever I partnered them with on a project and they sure weren't about to get up in front of the class. Most teachers quickly become accustomed to all the opting out. We wise up and toughen up to help kids toughen up. We also figure out how to know when, for the moment, it is better to leave them be. We also get used to the exceptions that kids and their parents ask for. The first year I assigned James Baldwin's "If Beale Street Could Talk," a girl told me her parents wouldn't let her read it. Her brother had found all the f-bombs and showed their parents. The novel also contains critiques of Christian piety and hypocrisy. It was on the district approved reading list, but I didn't want to give that girl any more grief than her brother and parents already were so I let her read something else. Even so, I am concerned about the Supreme Court's ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor, validating an assertion of religious freedom over a school district's reading program. The case was brought by a group of Maryland parents against Montgomery County's school board, which refused to allow the parents to opt their kids out of the reading and/or discussion of books that depicted people married to same-sex spouses, dramatized a dog at a pride parade, and told other stories whose settings included the recognition and normalization of LGBTQ+ people. In general, I have always tried to honor the beliefs of parents ‒ not just about what to read but also about how they choose to raise their children ‒ whether or not I agree with them. I do this out of respect and also for the sake of kids who are better off without being in the middle of ideological conflict. There are limits, however. The most serious of these is that if I believe a parent's idea of discipline rises (or descends) to the level of physical abuse, I am compelled by law, as are all teachers, to report it to the authorities. Teachers are also mandated to report emotional abuse, elusive as it may be to detect. The students whose emotional abuse has often been the most obvious to me are gay teenagers whose parents have shunned or humiliated them. Some of this abuse is instigated by religious beliefs and influences that make their child's sexuality a source of torment. Another view: Schools are pushing LGBTQ+ books on kids. Supreme Court should side with parents. | Opinion I feel for those parents, but I am far more sympathetic to the young men and women who are the subject of the condemnation and alienation. Even in cases where the level of emotional abuse isn't sufficient to file a report, and with all due respect to the parents, I am compelled to offer emotional support and a voice of acceptance. If narrowing a child's educational experience in that way is a pillar of religious freedom, does that 'freedom' also prevent me or any other teacher from telling an LGBTQ+ student they need not be ashamed of who they are? Perhaps not ‒ not yet ‒ but I worry, as should all educators. It has been nearly 100 years since the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled in John Scopes' case that the state may not criminalize the teaching of human evolution, though Darwin's theory was at odds with the Judeo-Christian Bible's version of human inception. The parallels between Scopes and Mahmoud are far from perfect. The former challenged the academic freedom to teach science when science contradicted religious beliefs. The latter challenges the authority of a school district to override the religious beliefs (or interpretations, anyway) of parents on curricular decisions about their kids. Even so, it doesn't take much of a leap to get from opt-outs for LGBTQ+ book references to opt-outs for the study or even mention of human evolution. Evolution is foundational to anthropology, human history and civilization, and human biology. Preventing a student from learning about it could set the student behind their peers in their knowledge and understanding of science. Preventing a child from understanding the world beyond their own family and experience is potentially more crippling. The world in which today's children are growing up is diverse. An inability to comprehend it and navigate it can limit their academic and professional horizons. Some kids have two moms and some have two dads. Some kids have a transgender parent. Some are being raised by a single parent or grandparent(s) or in a blended family, some kids are being raised by someone with whom they are not related, and still others are being raised by no one at all. Refusing to allow a child to understand and normalize this diversity marginalizes those kids ‒ many of whom are already marginalized by circumstances. This is what educators think about. We try to look out for all kids, but especially the ones who might otherwise feel out of place. Opinion: If you had a teacher who changed your life, 'find that person, tell that person' More urgently, books that validate all families and all kids can save the life of a child who realizes they are gay or trans and feels alone and terrified by that realization. The imposition of those books to someone's faith seems, by comparison, trivial. Pushing back against that imposition seems utterly selfish ‒ ironic for people of faith. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. At the core of this issue are two fundamental questions: How much power and authority should parents legally have over their children? Are we, as a nation, willing to fully recognize the humanity and dignity of all people, regardless of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation or identity ‒ and regardless of our own comfort level? To the first question I can tell you, as a high school teacher and a parent, that parental power is ultimately mostly illusory, and quite often the tighter the parental grip the stronger the children's resistance. I do not have the answer to the second question, but I do know that on this day, Supreme Court justices tilted us toward no. Larry Strauss, a high school English teacher in South Los Angeles since 1992, is the author of 'Students First and Other Lies: Straight Talk From a Veteran Teacher' and "A Lasting Impact in the Classroom and Beyond," a book for new and struggling teachers. You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court ruling on LGBTQ books worries me as a teacher | Opinion
Yahoo
28-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion: SCOTUS ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor strengthens parents' educational rights, partnership with schools
The U.S. Supreme Court just affirmed that parents have the right and responsibility to direct how their children are taught about moral topics and clarified that schools must accommodate the religious practices of families. This important case is a win for families and the Constitution, and it points the way forward for stronger collaboration between parents and schools. In this case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, a school district in Maryland decided to introduce reading materials on sexuality and gender identity for discussion in early grades of elementary school. Initially, the district agreed to allow parents to opt their children out of these discussions. This is the approach nearly all states, including Maryland, take to parental concerns about sensitive discussions in class. The district, though, later changed its approach and told parents their children would have to participate in these classroom discussions. This created a significant burden on parents who feel they have a religious responsibility to direct how their children are taught about moral issues. A group of parents from different faith traditions challenged that decision in court, eventually leading to this Supreme Court ruling. The Court held that when schools require parents to 'submit their children to instruction that poses 'a very real threat of undermining' the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill,' the school must show that it has a compelling reason for doing so. Here, the Court noted, the schools offer many other accommodations for instruction in other areas, so they cannot claim they have an overwhelming reason not to accommodate only religious parents. The Court pointed out that the specific facts of this case, particularly the involvement of 'young, impressionable children who are likely to accept without question any moral messages conveyed by their teachers' instruction' and the use of materials that 'explicitly contradict their parents' religious views' compelled its conclusion. This is not the same as simply exposing older children to the existence of different viewpoints on controversial issues. The Court rejected the idea that parents could simply choose other schools: 'It is both insulting and legally unsound to tell parents that they must abstain from public education in order to raise their children in their religious faiths, when alternatives can be prohibitively expensive and they already contribute to financing the public schools.' This decision is a win for the parents. It also establishes important precedent for future conflicts between religious exercise and government regulations. Perhaps not as obvious at first sight is that it helps policymakers who want to facilitate better collaboration between parents and schools. The Court has made clear that simple accommodations, like allowing parents to opt students out of class discussions about sensitive topics, can avoid constitutional conflicts. The principle of accommodation also has implications for other areas of potential conflicts, like whether religious people can serve as foster parents or must pay for abortion coverage in their insurance plans. States can avoid cases like this one by giving parents information about what schools will be teaching in the classroom and proactively adopting accommodations where a government regulation is likely to be at odds with religious beliefs. State legislatures should follow the precedent set by this Court decision and pass or strengthen legislation that codifies such accommodations in law. Education leaders at the district and school levels throughout the country should strive to foster a stronger sense of partnership and collaboration with parents to minimize these kinds of conflicts in the future. If that practice becomes more common — as it should — the Court's decision will yield positive ripple effects far beyond the specific facts of this case.
