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New York Post
27-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Supreme surprise: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson accidentally came out — for school choice
During oral arguments in the case of Mahmoud v. Taylor, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson unintentionally made a practical and convincing case for universal school choice. A few years back, the Montgomery County, Md., school board instituted an 'LGBTQ-inclusive' curriculum that included storybooks for kids as young as pre-kindergarten. The books are ostensibly part of the English curriculum because apparently they feature words and sentences. Advertisement But the rationale for the program, according to the school system itself, is to 'disrupt' the 'binary' thinking of skeptical kids. Which sounds very much like indoctrination. For instance, one of the 'think aloud moments' for kids reading 'Born Ready,' the tale of a confused girl, is 'noticing how happy Penelope is when his mom hears him and commits to sharing with their loved ones that he is a boy.' 'Pride Puppy' is about a cute little dog who wanders into the Pride parade and meets friendly drag queens and leather-clad participants. Advertisement 'Love, Violet' and 'Prince & Knight' are about same-sex attraction. Even secular parents should find the idea of strangers teaching their prepubescent children about sexuality and gender dysphoria at such a young age and in such a frivolous manner unacceptable. As most conscientious parents understand, kids do not 'know themselves best.' Advertisement One of the most vital duties of parenting is guiding children through the confusion of adolescence and teaching them morality. It is not consecrating every harebrained notion that pops into their precious, underdeveloped brains. In any event, a group of religious parents led by a Muslim family in Maryland who believe the messages in the books conflict with their beliefs sued the county — not to stop the classes, but for the right to opt out of them. Yet Montgomery County refused to allow them to do it, maintaining that the opt-out requests would be so numerous they would disrupt the class. This might sound crazy, but if enough parents oppose a non-academic curriculum that it would be endangered, shouldn't a public school do their best to accommodate taxpayers, rather than the opposite? Advertisement Of course, in the progressive mindset the individual is subservient to the state, not vice-versa. So, Mahmoud v. Taylor is now in front of the court. During Tuesday's oral arguments, which seemed to be going relatively well for parents, Jackson conceded that she was 'struggling to see how it burdens a parent's religious exercise if the school teaches something the parent disagrees with.' After all, they have a 'choice,' she noted. 'You don't have to send your kid to that school. You can put them in another situation.' Theoretically speaking, this makes complete sense. You can surrender your impressionable young child to hokum about gender transformation that conflicts with your faith, or you can leave the school entirely and, presumably, send your kids to a private institution or home-school them. The problem here is that Maryland is one of the worst states for parental choice. Jackson, who spent years on the board of a Christian academy in Maryland, should know this. Other than a tiny voucher program, there is nowhere to go. Maryland doesn't have open enrollment policies that, at a bare minimum, allow parents to change schools within the district. Whichever school happens to be closest, no matter how poorly it performs or how ill-fitted it is for your child's needs, is where they must go. Advertisement Children might be the valuable thing in your life, but a Maryland parent is afforded more choices on where to buy a television than where they educate their kids. Maryland barely has any charter schools. Parents who want to homeschool, which is challenging enough, must wrestle with needless regulatory burdens to teach their own children. Anti-reform activists argue that school choice would result in an exodus of parents (and funding), undermining public schools' ability to function. This is called a marketplace. If you can't attract parents, it's probably because your service is substandard. Advertisement Anti-reform activists also argue that voucher programs are for rich people, when the reality is that they are mostly for the middle and working classes, who are unable to escape these propagandizing institutions. Montgomery County is one of the wealthiest in the country, so perhaps parents there have a better chance of escaping than most. Irrespective of who school reform would help, it is an exceedingly small favor to ask schools to allow parents to opt out of classes that teach 'inclusivity' — a euphemism for a radical cultural agenda. Advertisement The fact that schools refuse to meet this request only illustrates the radicalism of these institutions. But fortunately, Jackson has the answer on how to fix it. David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner. Twitter @davidharsanyi
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Parental Opt-Outs for Controversial Books
Book battles come to the Supreme Court: Mahmoud v. Taylor is before the Court this week, dealing with the Montgomery County Board of Education, which took away both parental notice and opt-outs for storybooks that celebrate transgenderism and pride parades, read to children as young as three and four. The plaintiffs are a coalition of religious parents from all different faith traditions, asking the Court to rule on "whether parents' rights to the free exercise of their faiths are burdened if public schools do not allow them to withdraw their children from classes on days" these themes are discussed, per a New York Times writeup. Oral arguments are happening now, and a decision is expected in June. At issue are the books Pride Puppy, an alphabet book about a puppy that gets lost at a Pride parade (at which there are drag queens and leather); Love, Violet, about a girl who crushes on her female classmate; Uncle Bobby's Wedding, which is self-explanatory; Born Ready, about a transgender child; Prince & Knight, a "modern fairy tale" about two boys falling in love and getting married after working together to battle a dragon; Intersection Allies which asks kids which pronouns fit them; and What Are Your Words? which tells kids that pronouns can "change like the weather." (The school district has since removed two of the books from the curriculum, though they remain in school libraries.) The lead plaintiffs are a Muslim couple—Tamer Mahmoud and Enas Barakat—who have a son in elementary school in Montgomery County. Other plaintiffs are Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox. It's not just that these books are stocked in school libraries: In 2022, the school district added them to the language arts curriculum for students in pre-K through fifth grade. "At first, the Montgomery school system gave parents notice when the storybooks were to be discussed, along with the opportunity to have their children excused from those sessions," reports the Times. "But the school system soon eliminated the advanced notice and opt-out policy, saying it was hard to administer, led to absenteeism and risked 'exposing students who believe the storybooks represent them and their families to social stigma and isolation.'" Several justices, even the liberal ones, expressed surprise at the themes and images depicted. "The Supreme Court will determine whether the school board policy burdens religious rights," reports NBC News. "The justices could then determine whether that burden violates the Constitution, or they could send the case back to lower courts to make that determination." Some of these books, like Born Ready, are teaching kids things that…are decidedly false (even if you agree with the transgenderism stuff): "Surprisingly to speakers of English and other Indo-European languages, gendering pronouns isn't actually all that common; most languages don't do it," posted Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle on X. "But the idea that this somehow means sex/gender isn't a 'big deal' in these cultures is Sapir-Whorfism run amok." Children might be walking away from these lessons thinking, for example, that Ghana is some promised land for gay rights, which is decidedly not the case. Pride Puppy, meanwhile, has a section that asks pre-schoolers (the intended audience!) to search for images from a word list that includes "intersex flag," "drag queen," "underwear," and "leather." (That book has since been removed from the curriculum.) "Despite faith differences, these parents believe the storybooks are age-inappropriate, spiritually and emotionally damaging for their children, and inconsistent with their religious beliefs," notes the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty (which is representing the plaintiffs) in a press release about the case. Listen to some audio from oral arguments. "It's not just exposure to the idea, right?" Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked. "It's saying this is the right view of the world. This is how we think about things. This is how you should think about things. This is like 2 plus 2 is 4." "If the school teaches something that the parent disagrees with, you have a choice. You don't have to send your kid to that school," said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Several of the plaintiffs have withdrawn their children from the school system as a result of this, opting for private schools and homeschooling.) It's not clear to me why Montgomery County schoolteachers and administrators would be so threatened by parents retaining their opt-out ability—unless it is, of course, about indoctrination into a particular set of ideas. Some teachers have claimed that the sheer number of opt-outs makes classroom management hard, to which my response would be: Interesting market signals you've got there! Maybe, just maybe, if the lessons are so broadly unpopular, they should be scrapped. (If I were put in this position—and I assume New York City will at some point spring this type of thing on me—homeschooling would be my move, personally.) For an opposing (and admittedly more informed on constitutional law) view, Eugene Volokh and Yale Law's Justin Driver submitted an amicus brief supporting the school system. You can read it here. Done with CECOT: Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been moved to a lower security facility in Santa Ana, El Salvador, according to Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D–Md.), who visited him last week and has publicly exerted pressure on the Trump administration to ensure Abrego Garcia's return to the U.S. is facilitated, in compliance with the Supreme Court's order. "The U.S. State Department said in an update to the federal district court in Maryland that Abrego Garcia was moved to the facility eight days before Van Hollen met with him in El Salvador last week," per a CBS News report. Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia's wife and kids have moved to a safe house, after the Department of Homeland Security posted a domestic violence protection order from 2021 that featured her address to X. "I don't feel safe when the government posts my address, the house where my family lives, for everyone to see, especially when this case has gone viral and people have all sorts of opinions," Jennifer Vasquez Sura told The Washington Post. "So, this is definitely a bit terrifying. I'm scared for my kids." "I just want my husband back, my best friend back, my kids' father back. I want our life back," she added. Cornell University dropped a popular R&B singer from its annual campus concert over what the school's president said were antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiments she had espoused," reports The New York Times. "The singer, Kehlani, has been an outspoken opponent of Israel's war in Gaza, speaking out at concerts and on social media. In a 2024 music video for the song 'Next 2 U,' Kehlani danced in a jacket adorned with kaffiyehs as dancers waved Palestinian flags in the background. During the video's introduction, the phrase 'Long Live the Intifada' appeared against a dark background." This cowardly capitulation seems likely to be related to the Trump administration's investigations of antisemitism on university campuses, as well as the freezing, earlier this month of $1 billion worth of federal funds meant for Cornell (endowment: $10.7 billion). On Tuesday, President Donald Trump began to walk back some of his comments about imposing a 145 percent tariff on Chinese goods, reports Bloomberg, mentioning he'd be willing to "substantially" reduce his tariffs on China. "We're going to have a fair deal with China," Trump told reporters yesterday. After those comments, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that "there will be no unilateral reduction in tariffs against China. The president has made it clear China needs to make a deal with United States of America, and we are optimistic that will happen." In other words, the administration itself doesn't seem to know which policy it's sticking with. First-term approval of Trump's handling of immigration policy vs. second-term approval so far: Crucial distinctions between the normal deportation process and deportations under the Alien Enemies Act from today's Just Asking Questions guest: I think this is not aspirational, actually, and would be a sign we're further creeping toward authoritarianism: How do Chinese propagandists capitalize on domestic turmoil? This and more are covered in the latest Just Asking Questions with Michael Beckley: "Of course you know I think it's good for the administration to consider pro-natalist ideas," writes Ross Douthat on X, linking to a New York Times piece about new family policies being considered, "but right now nothing would be more pro-natalist than avoiding an unnecessary recession." (We'll ask Douthat about this and more when he comes on the show next week.) The post Parental Opt-Outs for Controversial Books appeared first on
Boston Globe
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Justices seem set to allow opt-outs from LGBTQ stories in schools
Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that the school board initially allowed parents to withdraw their children when the books were discussed, but reversed course. Advertisement 'I'm not understanding why it's not feasible,' he said, adding, 'They're not asking you to change what's taught in the classroom.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Lawyers for the school system said the opt-outs were hard to administer, led to absenteeism, and risked 'exposing students who believe the storybooks represent them and their families to social stigma and isolation.' In recent cases, the Supreme Court has expanded the role of religion in public life, sometimes at the expense of other values like gay rights. The court has ruled in favor of a web designer who said she did not want to create sites for same-sex marriages, a high school football coach who said he had a constitutional right to pray at the 50-yard line after his team's games, and a Catholic social services agency in Philadelphia that said it could defy city rules and refuse to work with same-sex couples who had applied to take in foster children. Advertisement Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland's largest school system, adopted the new curriculum in 2022. The storybooks included 'Pride Puppy,' an alphabet primer about a family whose puppy gets lost at a Pride parade; 'Love, Violet,' about a girl who develops a crush on her female classmate; and 'Born Ready,' about a transgender boy. Parents of several faiths sued, saying the books violated the First Amendment's protection of the free exercise of religion. The books, their complaint said, 'promote one-sided transgender ideology, encourage gender transitioning, and focus excessively on romantic infatuation.' Near the end of the argument, Kavanaugh thanked the school board's lawyer, Alan Schoenfeld, suggesting he had done what he could with hopeless material. 'It's a tough case to argue,' Kavanaugh said. Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court's liberal wing, said the books dealt with sensitive topics. They are, she said, 'young kids' picture books and on matters concerning sexuality.' 'I suspect there are a lot of nonreligious parents who weren't all that thrilled about this,' she said. 'And then you, you know, add in religion and, and that's, you know, even more serious.' But she said the case presented difficult line-drawing problems between allowing school officials to determine what to teach, and respecting parents' ability to oversee their children's religious upbringing. One of those lines, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, was whether simply exposing children to the books put a burden on their parents' faith. 'The mere exposure to things that you object to is not coercion,' she said. Advertisement Kagan asked Eric Baxter, a lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented the parents, to help find a line, giving the example of teaching evolution in a biology class. Baxter said parents should be able to withdraw their children whenever instruction conflicted with their sincerely held religious views. The upshot of that approach, Kagan said, was 'opt-outs for everyone.' Two justices had differing interpretations of one of the books, 'Uncle Bobby's Wedding,' about a same-sex union. 'The book has a clear message,' Alito said, 'and a lot of people think it's a good message, and maybe it is a good message, but it's a message that a lot of people who hold on to traditional religious beliefs don't agree with.' He focused on one character in the book, which is intended to be read by 3- to 6-year-olds. A little girl named Chloe has reservations about her uncle's marriage, Alito said, but her mother corrects her. 'It's a clear moral message' endorsing same-sex marriage, the justice said. Sotomayor interjected. 'Wait a minute,' she said. She said Chloe was not objecting to same-sex marriage as such. 'She was objecting to having her uncle's time taken by someone else,' she said. Alito responded that 'we could have a book club and have a debate about how Uncle Bobby's marriage should be understood.' The parents said they were not seeking to remove the books from school libraries and classrooms, but to shield their children from having to discuss them. (The school system has since withdrawn two of the books, including 'Pride Puppy.' Schoenfeld said that was part of 'the ordinary review process.') Kavanaugh, who lives in Montgomery County, discussed Maryland's long-standing commitment to religious pluralism with Schoenfeld. 'I guess I'm surprised, given that this is, you know, this is the hill we're going to die on, in terms of not respecting religious liberty,' Kavanaugh said. Advertisement Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned whether judges, as opposed to local school board officials, were better suited to determine what should be part of a public school's curriculum. 'These questions don't always have one answer,' she said. 'Maybe in one community, one set of values, these books are fine, but in another community with a different set about values, they're not. And it's sort of the local process that allows that to cash out where people live, that allow their values to get expressed.' This article originally appeared in
CBS News
22-04-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Supreme Court seems likely to side with parents over opt-outs for storybooks on gender identity, sexuality
Washington — A sharply divided Supreme Court appeared likely to require a Maryland school board provide parents with the ability to opt their elementary school-age children out of instruction featuring storybooks that address gender identity and sexual orientation. At issue in the court fight between a group of families and the Montgomery County Board of Education is whether public schools unconstitutionally burden parents' First Amendment right to exercise their religion freely when they require children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality that violate the families' religious beliefs. After more than two hours of arguments, the court's conservative majority seemed ready to side with the families. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who lives in Montgomery County, Maryland, invoked the state's founding and said the county in particular has been a "beacon" of religious liberty and tolerance. He told Alan Schoenfeld, who argued for the school board, he was "surprised" given that history that "this is the hill you're going to die on in terms of not respecting religious liberty." "What is the big deal about allowing them to opt-out of this?" Justice Samuel Alito asked, noting that the county allows parents to request their children be excused from other areas of instruction, such as sexual education or Halloween or Valentine's Day celebrations. "What is infeasible about doing that?" Kavanaugh echoed Alito, saying, "I'm not understanding why it's not feasible" for schools to excuse children from instruction that violate their families' religious beliefs. Forty-seven states and the District of Columbia allow for parental opt-outs or require opt-ins before students participate in sex education. Montgomery County, home to Maryland's largest public school system with more than 160,000 students, also had an opt-out policy for parents with religious objections to classroom instruction or activities so long as the requests did not become "too frequent or burdensome," according to court papers. After Maryland enacted rules seeking to promote "educational equity," the Montgomery County Education Board introduced "LGBTQ-inclusive" storybooks for elementary school students into its English Language Arts curriculum. The district said it supplemented its language arts books with a handful of stories "in order to better represent all Montgomery County families." Among the five books incorporated, which are at issue in the case, were "Born Ready," about a transgender elementary-aged child, and "Prince & Knight," about a prince who falls in with and marries a knight. Several of the justices acknowledged that they had read the picture books that were included in the curriculum, and Alito at one point even read from one, "Uncle Bobby's Wedding," which discusses gay marriage. The board adopted the lessons in 2022, but allowed parents to opt their children out of reading and instruction involving the storybooks. But in March 2023, the Montgomery County school board announced that families would no longer receive advanced notice of when the books would be read and would not be able to have their kids excused from the instruction. The board said in court filings that the opt-outs had become "unworkable," as some schools had high numbers of absences, and all faced "substantial hurdles" in using the books while honoring opt-out requests, as teachers would have to manage the removal of excused students from class and plan alternative activities for them. That decision, however, sparked backlash within the community — more than 1,000 parents signed a petition that called on the board to restore the notice and opt-outs, and dozens protested the books at board meetings as violating their religious beliefs. The school board then revised its Religious Diversity Guidelines to limit the circumstances when students can be excused to noncurricular activities or free-time events that conflict with their family's religious practices. A group of three families filed a lawsuit against the Montgomery County Board of Education, arguing that denial of the notice and opt-outs violated their right to exercise their religion freely under the First Amendment because it overrode their freedom to direct the religious upbringing of their children. The families — who are Muslim, Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox — sought a preliminary injunction that would've required the school board to provide advance notice and the chance to opt their children out of instruction that involved the books. But a federal district judge in Maryland denied the request, finding that the no-opt-out policy did not burden the families' religious exercise. The parents' inability to excuse their children from instruction with the storybooks doesn't coerce them into violating their religious beliefs, the court found, as they can still teach their kids about their convictions regarding sexuality, marriage and gender. A divided panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit also found that there was no burden on the families' free exercise of religion because there was no evidence they were compelled to change their religious beliefs or conduct. The families asked the Supreme Court to review that decision, and the high court in January agreed to do so. The Trump administration is backing the parents in the case, arguing that the board burdened parents' religious exercise by forcing them to choose between violating their religious beliefs or forgoing public education. In filings with the high court, lawyers for the parents also said that Montgomery County is presenting them with an "impossible" choice. The parents, they said, "must subject their children to instruction intended to disrupt their religious beliefs or forgo the benefits of a public education at the sizeable cost of either paying for private school, homeschooling, or facing government fines and penalties." Additionally, they argued that suspending the notice and opt-outs created "topsy-turvy categorizations" in which a 14-year-old can be excused from instruction on gender and sexuality during sex education, but a 4-year-old has to sit through similar instruction as part of the English Language Arts curriculum. Eric Baxter, who argued on behalf of the families, told the justices that Montgomery County is an "extreme outlier" for declining to allow parents to excuse their children despite their religious objections to the content. He said the instruction featuring the books with LGBTQ-themes was "clearly indoctrinating" students. The families also said that at least one member of the board demonstrated religious hostility toward them, claiming they likened them to "white supremacists" and "xenophobes." Justice Neil Gorsuch repeatedly raised the comments, and asked Shoenfeld if they "suggest a hostility toward religion." Shoenfeld said the remarks were taken out of context but acknowledged they were "intemperate." Kavanaugh said that as a lifelong resident of Montgomery County, he was "mystified" by how the dispute over opt-outs exploded in the way that it did and said that the county "stands alone" both with the types of books added to the curriculum for young students and in not allowing parents to opt their children out of the instruction. The school system has said that its teachers were expressly forbidden from using the books to pressure students to change their religious beliefs, and argued that while it tried to accommodate parents' requests to opt their children out of the instruction, doing so eventually became "unworkably disruptive." Lawyers for the school district also argued that exposure to content that parents object to on religious grounds is not the same as impermissibly coercing students to disavow their religious practices. The parents, they said, didn't put forward any evidence that their children were penalized for their religious beliefs, were asked to affirm views contrary to their faith, or were prohibited from engaging in religious practice. Schoenfeld told the justices that the books sought to "foster mutual respect in a pluralistic community." It was unclear whether the court would adopt a firm rule that specifies when certain public-school instruction crosses the line from mere exposure to objectionable content into impermissible coercion of students. The justices raised several examples to discern the point at which the right to free exercise of religion would be burdened. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned whether a parent could request an opt-out for their child whose teacher shows photos from their same-sex wedding or talks about it, or whether a teacher would have to notify a parent if their child had a transgender classmate. "This is not just about books," she said, adding that the issue was exposure to ideas that families have a sincerely held religious objection to. Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned Baxter in whether the families were objecting to the "exposure to the ideas" portrayed in the books and asked whether they would be pursuing their claim if the storybooks were just on the shelf at the library, rather than incorporated into instruction. The school board has warned that accepting the parents' argument that the no-opt-out policy burdened their religious exercise could have harmful effects for public education as a whole. "Crediting petitioners' burden theory would not only contravene constitutional text, history, and precedent, but also — as courts have long recognized — 'leave public education in shreds' by entitling parents to pick and choose which aspects of the curriculum will be taught to their children," they wrote in court papers . The American Civil Liberties Union also said that under the parents' assertions, public school families could request exemptions from an array of curricular requirements because of their religious beliefs, including objecting to lessons on major historical figures who are LGBTQ. "In sum, requiring public schools to exempt students from secular instruction that they or their parents may find objectionable for religious reasons could throw public schools into disarray, effectively 4 forcing them to tailor their educational materials to align with the religious beliefs of individual students and/or their parents," ACLU lawyers wrote in a filing . A decision from the Supreme Court is expected by early July.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court to hear arguments on LGBTQ+ children's books in schools
Not sure how to find NewsNation on your TV? . Get 24/7 fact-based unbiased news coverage with the (NewsNation) — The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Tuesday in an ongoing battle over LGBTQ+ themes in books between Maryland parents and the state's largest school district. Arguments will be streamed from this story when they begin at 10 a.m. ET. The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, revolves around a coalition of parents who believe they have a religious right to keep their kids from reading books that discuss LGBTQ+ themes. The parents are not asking for the books to be removed from the schools, but are instead asking their children not be forced to read or listen to them as part of the school curriculum. The books include 'Love Violet,' which tells the story of a same-sex crush between students, and 'Uncle Bobby's Wedding,' which illustrates a gay wedding. Another book, 'Born Ready,' tells the story of a transgender boy. Education Department to restart collections on defaulted student loans The books were originally added to Montgomery County Public Schools' curriculum in 2022 for students in pre-K through fifth grade. Previously, parents could choose to opt out when these books were used as 'compelled instruction' in class. But that option was eliminated last year, when a federal appeals court ruled that kids could not step out of reading programs over LGBTQ+ content. As a result, a coalition of parents sued the district over what they call a violation of the First Amendment's religious protections. The district's lawyers contend the books can coexist 'alongside the many books already in the curriculum that feature heterosexual characters in traditional gender roles.' Trump backs NY school's fight to keep 'Chiefs' name, logo 'The storybooks themselves do not instruct about gender or sexuality,' the school board's SCOTUS brief reads. 'They are not textbooks. They merely introduce students to characters who are LGBTQ or have LGBTQ family members, and those characters' experiences and points of view.' Schools have already pulled at least two books, but the district continues to argue these stories are meant to promote acceptance and teach diverse cultures to children, not to violate any constitutional rights. A decision on the case is expected in late June. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
