Supreme Court rules schools must allow parental opt-outs

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled that public schools must give advance notice to parents and allow them the opportunity to opt their children out of lessons or classroom instruction on matters of gender and sexuality that conflict with their religious beliefs.

Mahmoud v. Taylor was decided 6-3 along party lines, with conservative Justice Samuel Alito authoring the majority opinion and liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown-Jackson in dissent.

Parents from diverse religious backgrounds sued to challenge the policy in Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools when storybooks featuring LGBTQ characters were added to the elementary school English curriculum in 2022.

The school board argued in the brief submitted to the Supreme Court that “the storybooks themselves do not instruct about gender or sexuality. They are not textbooks. They merely introduce students to characters who are LGBTQ or have LGBTQfamily members, and those characters’ experiences and points of view.”

Advocacy groups dedicated to advancing free speech and expression filed amicus briefs in support of the district.

PEN America argued the case should be viewed in the context of broader efforts to censor and restrict what is available and allowable in public schools, for instance by passing book bans and “Don’t Say Gay” laws.

The ACLU said the policy of not allowing opt-outs is religion-neutral, writing that the Supreme Court should apply rational basis review, which requires only that the school district show that its conduct was “rationally related” to a “legitimate” government interest.

LGBTQ groups also objected to the challenge against the district’s policy, with many submitting amici briefs including: the National Center for Lesbian Rights, GLAD Law, Family Equality, COLAGE, Lambda Legal, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, PFLAG., and the National Women’s Law Center.

The Human Rights Campaign did not submit a brief but did issue a statement by the group’s President Kelley Robinson: “LGBTQ+ stories matter. They matter so students can see themselves and their families in the books they read–so they can know they’re not alone.”

“And they matter for all students who need to learn about the world around them and understand that while we may all be different, we all deserve to be valued and loved,” she said. “All students lose when we limit what they can learn, what they can read, and what their teachers can say. The Supreme Court should reject this attempt to silence our educators and ban our stories.”