The U.S. Supreme Court in June issued a decision in a case that could have impacts on religious freedom in schools – and the ability of parents to object to instructional materials.
The 6-3 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor sides with religious parents in Maryland who sought to remove their children from classroom lessons featuring LGBTQ+ books.
The court’s conservative majority found in its ruling, which is not a final decision in the case, that parents were likely to succeed on their claim that their religious beliefs support a right to opt-out their children.
Daniel Morton-Bentley, General Counsel and Deputy Commissioner for Legal Affairs for the New York State Education Department, says the department is disappointed with the decision. He says the case “unnecessarily interjected the Court in a dispute over a local school district curricula.”
WAMC’s Lucas Willard spoke with Morton-Bentley to learn more.
This case arose out of Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland. It’s a very big school district, over 150,000 students, and they, a few years ago, added LGBTQ books to their English-Language Arts curriculum. After getting complaints, the school board developed this notification and opt out procedure where parents who claim to have religious objections could excuse their children from instruction when those books were read. The board rescinded that in 2023, both because it presented logistical challenges and, in their view, subjected LGBTQ students to social stigma and isolation. So a coalition of parents then brought this lawsuit, which went up to the Supreme Court.
And the Supreme Court has issued a decision here. Why is New York State opposed to the outcome? I understand that the state will respect the authority of the Supreme Court in this decision, but this is not the outcome that the state would have preferred.
Yeah, I think that a big portion of this decision relies on this zero-sum idea, that the LGBTQ identity and religious beliefs, according to the court, are on this collision course, and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it and what is a win for one group is a loss for the other. And that's something that we disagree with at the Department, and I think that the case also presents a lot of questions.
It's very clear who won at this stage, but for example, how are schools who already have been placed at the center of so many culture war issues going to evaluate the sincerity of religious beliefs before them? It's actually something that schools in New York and the State Education Department have experience with when there was a religious exemption to school immunizations, and it's a frustrating and tough process that try to judge people's religious beliefs, decide whether they are entitled to something.
Another challenge it has is that religious families will have this right if, according to the court, a law imposes a burden of the same character as that in Yoder. And Yoder v. Wisconsin is a case about whether Amish families can effectively opt out of instruction after the middle school. But what the same character as Yoder means is a novel phrase that we have little guidance on.
In your view, how will this court decision affect local control at school districts and the ability for school districts to develop programs and curriculum?
I think there's a lot of concern based on the approach of this decision, but I don't think it's going to have a huge impact. I think that people trust their local schools in large part, and people have open lines of communication in districts through parent representatives, through teachers’ unions, open school board meetings. I think that school boards…is largely, you know, and curriculum is a local issue. That's another thing that makes this decision so jarring. There's a federal law, 20 USC 1232A, which provides the federal government cannot interfere in any local matters of curriculum that's been on the books for decades. So, I think that that captures the spirit that we have in our state, that curriculum decisions are made at the local level. So, I anticipate that we do have to comply with this ruling throughout the New York state, throughout the country, but I think that that it won't represent a sea change.
Now when it comes to programs or educational curricula that does deal with LGBTQ+ issues, how will New York continue to commit to its own diversity goals without violating any federal decision making, and, therefore, becoming a target for potential lawsuits or withholding of federal funds, or any of the other tactics that we're seeing in Washington right now?
Yeah, great question. So, the good news is, at most, this decision represents allowing some families to not receive portions of required instruction. So, the good news is that New York State, we at the State Education Department, set learning standards, which is what we expect students will know and achieve, and schools are still going to have the freedom to select materials that they believe are going to meet those goals. But this is an area that, again, this decision doesn't provide much help or guidance, and in fact, the court majority did acknowledge, as the school board argued, that tolerance, respect, diversity are legitimate values. It just chose to say, but in this instance, the religious families’ rights trump them.
So, when it comes to school districts communicating with parents who may object to certain classroom lessons or materials, because of a lack of federal guidance in this case, will the state be developing any guidance or sharing any guidance with districts on how to communicate with families and to allow certain religious exemptions to proceed?
Yeah, I don't think we have plans at this time to offer, you know, proscriptive guidance, but I can say that our policy office is working on guidance to the field about more generally, how to address these issues with parents who have concerns about the curriculum and how it would be addressed.
And along those lines, for anybody who does have any questions about the Supreme Court case, or for any local districts that would require some more information, where can they go?
Yeah, the State Education Department always provides technical assistance to anyone who who asks we to the best of our ability, sometimes, when it's a legal question like this, though we can't provide guidance on specific facts, but I would encourage families reach out to the administration of your local school district, ask them what this means, share your concerns with them. And I think that's a way of getting around this zero-sum framing that the court has given us is have a dialog at the local level. Don't be afraid to say, ‘Here is where I come out, and what can you do to help me?’ I think that opting out is never a good strategy for any difficult issue. It's by engaging with people and ideas with which we disagree that we ultimately come out in a better place.
