Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up a dispute over whether a Maryland school district violated parents’ religious rights when it declined to allow them to opt their elementary school children out of instruction involving storybooks about gender and sexuality.
The dispute centers around a decision by the Montgomery County School Board to end opt-out requests and notice requirements for the reading and discussion of storybooks that feature LGBTQ characters. The case sets up another clash involving LGBTQ rights and religious rights. It’s unclear whether the Supreme Court will hear arguments in its current term, which ends this summer, or its next term that will begin in October.
The books were approved for the Montgomery County Public Schools language-arts curriculum for the 2022-2023 school year as part of an effort to include new material that better represents the school district’s students and families, it said. Montgomery County is Maryland’s largest county and its school system serves more than 160,000 students.
Books introduced for students include titles like “Pride Puppy,” a picture book about a dog that gets lost at a Pride parade, and “Jacob’s Room to Choose,” about two transgender school-aged children.
Lawyers for the school district said in court filings that the books “impart critical reading skills through engaging, age-appropriate stories,” and the district follows a “careful, public, participatory selection process” to ensure they meet that criteria. The books are made available for individual reading, classroom read-alouds and other educational activities, according to the school district.
After the books were introduced, some parents sought to have their children excused when they were read or discussed. Some of these so-called out-out requests were religious-based and others were not, according to court filings. Lawyers for the board said that while teachers and principals attempted to accommodate the requests, the number grew and raised concerns about student absenteeism, the feasibility of administering opt-outs throughout the district and the “risk of exposing students who believe the storybooks represent them and their families to social stigma and isolation.”
The district then announced in March 2023 that it wouldn’t allow opt-outs from language-arts instruction that involved the storybooks “for any reason.”
The decision sparked backlash from the community, and more than 1,000 parents signed a petition urging the board to reinstate their notice and opt-out requests. Hundreds also attended school board meetings and said they had religious obligations not to subject their children to gender and sexuality instruction that conflicted with their religious beliefs.
Following the school district’s announcement, in May 2023, three sets of parents sued the Montgomery County Board of Education, alleging their First Amendment and due process rights were violated. The lead challengers are Tamer Mahmoud and Enas Barakat, who are Muslim and have a son in elementary school. Also challenging the board’s move are Chris and Melissa Persak, who are Roman Catholic and have two elementary-age children, and Jeff and Svitlana Roman, who are Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox and have a son in elementary school.
They sought a court order that would require notice and opt outs when the books were read or discussed. The parents argued their children’s exposure to the books “necessarily establishes the existence of a burden” on their right to freely exercise their religion.
A federal district court denied the request, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld the decision.
The divided three-judge panel found that there was no evidence at that time that the families were compelled to change their religious beliefs or conduct, or what they taught their children.
The parents then appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the 4th Circuit’s decision effectively requires parents to “surrender their right to direct the religious upbringing of their children by sending them to public schools.”
“Under the Fourth Circuit’s reasoning, parents cannot be heard until after the damage has been done to their children. But there is no unringing that bell — by then, innocence will be lost and beliefs undermined,” they wrote in a filing.
But the school board urged the Supreme Court to turn away the case.
They said the parents “seek to unsettle a decades-old consensus that parents who choose to send their children to public school are not deprived of their right to freely exercise their religion simply because their children are exposed to curricular materials the parents find offensive.”
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