The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Maryland parents who have religious objections can pull their children from public school lessons that use LGBTQ storybooks.
With the six conservative justices in the majority, the court reversed lower-court rulings in favor of the Montgomery County school system in suburban Washington. The high court ruled that the schools likely could not require elementary school children to sit through lessons involving the books if parents expressed religious objections to the material.
“This is a loss for public education, freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights,” said Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin. “LGBTQ+ stories matter. Kids deserve to see themselves in the books they read. Tragically, the same zealots who try to ban books from libraries are now trying to limit what kids can learn, read and hear from teachers in their classrooms.”
The ruling comes just two days before Chicago’s annual Pride Parade, a celebration of people from across for the LGBTQ community.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court that the lack of an “opt-out” … “places an unconstitutional burden on the parents’ rights to the free exercise of their religion.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent for the three liberal justices that exposure to different views in a multicultural society is a critical feature of public schools. “Yet it will become a mere memory if children must be insulated from exposure to ideas and concepts that may conflict with their parents’ religious beliefs,” Sotomayor wrote. “Today’s ruling ushers in that new reality.”
The decision was not a final ruling in the case, but the justices strongly suggested that the parents will win in the end. The court ruled that policies like the one at issue in the case are subjected to the strictest level of review, nearly always dooming them.
The school district introduced the storybooks, including “Prince & Knight” and “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” in 2022 as part of an effort to better reflect the district’s diversity. In “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” a niece worries that her uncle won’t have as much time for her after he gets married to another man.
The justices have repeatedly endorsed claims of religious discrimination in recent years, and the case is among several religious-rights cases at the court this term. The decision also comes amid increases in recent years in books being banned from public school and public libraries.
Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the ACLU of Illinois, said the decision was yet another break in norms for the court. Historically, students have been able to opt out of sexual education, but expanding that could put more of the curriculum at risk, he said.
Yohnka said the specifics of how this ruling could impact schools across Illinois aren’t yet known, but he worries about schools quietly removing longstanding curricula to preemptively avoid conflict.
“The court here has gone against a lot of precedent and a lot of its own rulings that could create chaos in classrooms, including, unfortunately, in Illinois,” Yohnka told the Sun-Times Friday. “There could be a softer chilling effect that could be further reaching. … What about history? Even the sciences these days. It’s not a great time to be a public educator, and the Supreme Court just made it harder.”
Corey Lascano, director of education at Trans Up Front and co-chair for the Chicago Teachers Union’s LGBTQIA+ committee, said she was “devastated” by the decision.
As a nonbinary trans woman, she said it’s also personal. Lascano said she didn’t hear the word “transgender” until she was in college, preventing her from coming to terms with her own identity until she was almost 30. Now she worries other kids across the country will be put in the same situation.
“As an educator, I know how extremely important it is for young people to see themselves in the curriculum,” Lascano, 36, said. “Visibility saves lives. So for kids to have to witness peers opting out of curriculum that teach about their identities, it makes those identities seem taboo.”
Lascano, a Chicago Public Schools music teacher, said she’s grateful her committee got language into the latest CPS contract securing rights for teachers and schools in setting curricula, as well as creating welcoming spaces for queer youth.
But she knows that won’t be the case everywhere. Her concern is for kids’ development.
“I think in far too many places in this country, they are going to pull back,” Lascano said. “This has given conservatives another tool to weaponize in the attempts to erase and eradicate queer people. … Young people won’t learn to exist with people who are different from them if they’ve been pulled out of context where they have to.”
Many of the removals were organized by Moms for Liberty and other conservative organizations that advocate for more parental input over what books are available to students. Soon after President Donald Trump took office in January, the Education Department called the book bans a “hoax” and dismissed 11 complaints that had been filed under President Joe Biden.
The writers’ group PEN America said in a filing in the Maryland case that the objecting parents wanted “a constitutionally suspect book ban by another name.” PEN America reported more than 10,000 books were banned in the last school year.
Lawyer Eric Baxter, who represented the Maryland parents at the Supreme Court, said the decision was a “historic victory for parental rights.”
“Kids shouldn’t be forced into conversations about drag queens, Pride parades or gender transitions without their parents’ permission,” Baxter said.
Parents initially had been allowed to opt their children out of the lessons for religious and other reasons, but the school board reversed course a year later, prompting protests and eventually a lawsuit.
At arguments in April, a lawyer for the school district told the justices that the “opt outs” had become disruptive. Sex education is the only area of instruction in Montgomery schools that students can be excused from, lawyer Alan Schoenfeld said.
The case hit unusually close to home at the high court, as three justices live in the county, though they didn’t send their children to public schools.