03-05-2025
Parents' Rights Are Making a Comeback
Commentary
The right to opt out one's children from studying a sinister collection of sexually explicit storybooks in suburban Maryland, and the right to opt in to a Catholic Virtual charter school in Oklahoma, were heard last month at the Supreme Court. That these two cases are under review by the high court is a strong indication that—after decades of being ignored by our educational system and the courts—parental rights are back.
The first case,
Objections were raised by parents from faith traditions including Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and Islam. Their religious views do not endorse the ideologies pushed in the collection and they don't want their children indoctrinated. When their pleas to opt their young children out of this curriculum were rejected by their school board, they
A district court
When it comes to protecting the interests of parents in their children's education and religious formation, there is no better guardian than this Supreme Court. Just think back to 2020 when the Court
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filed briefs with the Supreme Court in support of the Montgomery County parents' simple quest to shield their children from what is 'antithetical to what they teach at home.' The Trump administration also
Like some of the objecting parents in Montgomery County, many parents of faith are also unable to afford the tuition to send their children to private religious schools and similarly find themselves trapped by official ideology. The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa responded to their plight, planning to operate St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School as a charter school. While the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board
Clearly the Oklahoma Attorney General and state supreme court haven't been paying much attention to the Supreme Court in recent years. In addition to invalidating Montana's discriminatory scholarship program, the Court in 2022 found that Maine
Just as excluding religious schools from scholarships and vouchers is an unconstitutional form of religious discrimination, so too is categorically denying an otherwise qualified religious school from charter school certification simply because they are religious.
This Supreme Court has made clear time and again that the failure to respect religious freedom in education is odious to the guarantees of the Constitution. Although some local school boards and state officials seem to be ignoring this, parents of faith are not willing to put up with it any longer. And now, finally, it seems that they have the support of the most powerful institutions in the land.
From
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
