Good morning. Today is the second to last Quiz addressing the Supreme Court’s Mahmoud v. Taylor decision. As you will recall the school board had introduced a curriculum on younger children with LGBTQ+-inclusive storybooks but with no opt out option for parents. In the decision, (1) did the Supreme Court express any view on the educational value of the school board’s proposed curriculum, and (2) did that curriculum place an unconstitutional burden on the parents’ religious exercise because it was imposed with no opportunity for opt outs?
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Answer: (1) No and (2) yes. Here’s what the Supreme Court said:
We acknowledge that “courts are not school boards or legislatures, and are ill-equipped to determine the ‘necessity’ of discrete aspects of a State's program of compulsory education.” Yoder, 406 U.S. at 235, 92 S.Ct. 1526. It must be emphasized that what the parents seek here is not the right to micromanage the public school curriculum, but rather to have their children opt out of a particular educational requirement that burdens their well-established right “to direct ‘the religious upbringing’ of their children.” Espinoza, 591 U.S. at 486, 140 S.Ct. 2246 (quoting Yoder, 406 U.S. at 213–214, 92 S.Ct. 1526). We express no view on the educational value of the Board's proposed curriculum, other than to state that it places an unconstitutional burden on the parents’ religious exercise if it is imposed with no opportunity for opt outs. Providing such an opportunity would give the parents no substantive control over the curriculum itself.
Several States across the country permit broad opt outs from discrete aspects of the public school curriculum without widespread consequences. See, e.g., 22 Pa. Code § 4.4(d)(3) (2025); Minn. Stat. § 120B.20 (2024); Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 15–102(A)(4), (8)(c) (2024). And prior to the introduction of the “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks, the Board's own “Guidelines for Respecting Religious Diversity” gave parents a broad right to have their children excused from specific aspects of the school curriculum. These facts belie any suggestion that the provision of parental opt outs in circumstances like these “will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools.” Post, at –––– (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting).
Mahmoud v. Taylor, 145 S. Ct. 2332, 2363 (2025)
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