The Supreme Court ruled in Mahmoud v. Taylor (2025) that parents had a right to exempt their public school students from lessons that conflict with their religious beliefs based on a First Amendment right of religious freedom.
The case involved a public school district in Montgomery County, Maryland, that had adopted LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks and used them in teacher-led discussion in elementary school.
The storybooks included such titles as “Pride Puppy” and “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” that dealt with such issues as nonbinary identification, gender transitions and gay pride for pre-K to sixth grade classroom instruction.
Parents wanted to remove their children from LGBTQ lessons
In addition to concerns (shared by some school officials) that the materials were not age appropriate, some parents also objected to guidelines in instructional materials for teachers that suggested that gender identification was a choice rather than a biological fact and comments from board authorities that suggested that those who thought otherwise were prejudiced.
Although parents who thought such teachings contradicted their religious beliefs were initially permitted to allow their children to opt out of such instruction, the board had stopped requiring that school give parental notice of instruction using the books and allowing opt-outs, largely because of the inconvenience on the schools.
A U.S. district court denied the parents' request for a preliminary injunction against the school policy. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had rejected their an interlocutory appeal (one filed before a case has been fully resolved).
On the last day of it 2024-2025 term, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the lower courts by granting a preliminary injunction in a 6-3 decision, authored by Justice Samuel Alito. Justice Clarence Thomas authored a concurring opinion. Justice Sonya Sotomayor authored a dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Jackson.
Case differs from book banning
On the surface, the case resembles cases of book banning, where schools remove books from school or public libraries because they are perceived to be objectionable content.
In this case, however, parents were not objecting to the presence of such books on a bookshelf but to the teacher-led in-class reading and discussion of books that they believed contradicted their own religious beliefs about sexuality. They also objected to the school’s decision not to allow parents to opt their children out of such discussions. They argued that the law was not neutral, because other state laws allowed parents to opt their children out of other instructions dealing with family life and human sexuality.
Parents have a right to guide religious development of their children
In his decision, Justice Alito referenced the religious and cultural diversity of Montgomery County, Maryland that includes Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims and others, some of whom object to same-sex sexual relations.
He focused on the fact that the curriculum in question applied to children from kindergarten to fifth grade. Both Alito and Sotomayor used illustrations from the books. Alito thought the illustrations demonstrated that they intended to teach that sexual identity was a choice rather than a biological construct. Sotomayor used them to show that they were simply attempts to teach tolerance.
Justice Alito referenced the court’s decision in 2020 allowing the use of state money for religious schooling in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue that had recognized that under the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, parents had the right to direct “’the religious upbringing’ of their children.”
The Espinoza ruling had reaffirmed a First Amendment right of parents that had been recognized as early as 1925 in Pierce v. Society of Sisters when the court ruled that parents had a right to send their children to parochial schools and not be compelled to keep them in public school.
The court in 1943 had upheld religious freedom rights of parents in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette when it ruled that schools could not force Jehovah's Witness students to salute the flag.
And in 1972 in Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Supreme Court ruled that Amish parents could withdraw children from public schools beyond the eighth grade based on their religious beliefs.
Alito: Book go beyond exposing children to non-heterosexual people
After an extended review of the books in question, Alito concluded that they went beyond merely exposing children to the fact that not all individuals were heterosexual and intended to “convey a particular viewpoint about same-sex marriage and gender” that was contrary to what many parents were teaching at home. Alito argued that the decision in Yoder had not been an outlier, but “a statement of general principles.” The state’s unwillingness to offer opt-outs for parents who requested it presented a “chilling vision of the power of the state to strip away the critical right of parents to guide the religious development of their children.”
Noting that “public education is a public benefit,” Alito did not think it was reasonable to expect that parents who objected to teachings that contradicted their religious beliefs should have to seek expensive private education for their children. He also rejected the idea that fundamental rights such as religious free exercise should depend solely for their protection on democratic processes.
Having thus acknowledged the burden that Maryland had imposed, which resembled the burden in Yoder, he said that the court did not have to follow the standard articulated in Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith (1990), and ask whether the policy was neutral and generally applicable, but that it would decide instead whether the policy survived strict scrutiny. In applying this test, Alito decided that although the government had a compelling state interest in “maintaining a school environment that is safe and conducive to learning for all students,” it could have done so with a more narrowly tailored curriculum that allowed parents to know when the disputed books were being used and allow them to opt their children out of such instruction. Since the schools had refused to tell parents when the books would be read aloud and discussed, any administrative problems that the schools anticipated were largely of their own making.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion in which he relied more firmly on history and tradition. He noted that the idea of teaching sexuality and gender identity, especially to relatively young children, is a fairly recent development. He further likened the school’s efforts to efforts by Protestants in the 19th century to induce religious conformity among Roman Catholics and other immigrants, many who ended up sending their children to parochial schools.
Sotomayor: Exposing students to objectionable ideas is not religious coercion
Justice Sotomayor’s opinion predicted that the majority ruling would sow chaos in public schools and have a “chilling effect” on curricular innovations. Whereas the majority interpreted the books as an attempt at ideological indoctrination, Sotomayor believed the books were designed to instill tolerance.
Although she did not believe that the government could force individuals to assent to beliefs with which they disagreed, she did not think that “mere exposure to objectionable ideas” gave “rise to a free exercise claim” or that mere “offense” amounted to “coercion.” She further distinguished this case from Yoder, which she thought involved a more serious intrusion into Amish practices.
Sotomayor argued that, given the wide variety of contemporary religious views, the kinds of accommodations the majority required would be unduly burdensome on school systems, who were better equipped to deal with curricular matters than the court. She feared that “today’s ruling threatens the very essence of public education” by constitutionalizing “a parental power over curricular choices long left to the democratic process and local administrators.”
Potential impact of ruling on school classrooms
The majority decision is in line with the contemporary court’s greater emphasis on the free exercise clause, particularly in public school settings, and it is likely to generate other cases involving the degree to which schools must exempt children from exposure to controversial ideas that may conflict with their religious beliefs. The court will likely permit greater exposure in high schools and colleges and universities than in elementary school settings.
John R. Vile is a political science professor and dean of the Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University.