The front view of the United States Supreme Court building at dusk, with its steps, columns, and illuminated entrance visible—a powerful symbol often at the center of charter renewal debates.

Supreme Court Elevates Parental Religious Rights in Public Education

  • A man with glasses and gray hair dons a blue checkered suit and light shirt, smiling confidently against a plain background. His demeanor suggests he's just wrapped up an insightful session of Education Law 101, feeling supercharged by the stimulating discussion.
    Paul Minney, Esq.
  • July 07, 2025
  • Charter Schools, Legal Alerts
  • 5 Minute Read

Case Summary and Factual Background

The U.S. Supreme Court recently held that a Maryland school district’s policy of introducing “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks into the elementary school curriculum without parental notice or opt-out options impermissibly burdens a parent’s First Amendment right to direct the religious upbringing of their children. The petitioners in Mahmoud v. Taylor (decided June 25, 2025), comprising diverse religious families including Muslim, Catholic, and Ukrainian Orthodox parents, sought a preliminary injunction when the school district board rescinded its previous accommodation policy that had permitted religious opt-outs from this part of the curriculum. The parents sought an injunction prohibiting the school board from requiring their children to read, listen to, or discuss the storybooks. The Supreme Court found that the parents were entitled to a preliminary injunction.

Legal Holdings and Constitutional Framework

The case primarily concerns public school instructional materials that might run contrary to or threaten to undermine some parents’ religious beliefs.  The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Alito, found that government educational policies violate the Free Exercise Clause when they create an “environment hostile to [parents’] religious beliefs”[1] or exert “pressure to conform” to contrary viewpoints and lifestyles, leading to a “very real threat of undermining” religious beliefs parents seek to instill in their children. The Court held that normative curricular content presented by authority figures to impressionable young children can constitute substantial interference with their religious development, even without explicit compulsion to abandon their religious beliefs. The Court described normative content as being “designed to present certain values and beliefs as things to be celebrated, and certain contrary values and beliefs as things to be rejected.”  

The Court found that the “books are unmistakably normative” and that these books impose upon children a set of values and beliefs that are “hostile” to their parents’ religious beliefs (i.e., that the books convey a particular viewpoint about same-sex marriage and gender that are contrary to the parents sincerely held religious beliefs), and that the district policy encouraged teachers to “disrupt” traditional thinking about gender and sexuality while directing educators to characterize divergent beliefs as “hurtful” when expressed by students in classroom discussions. The Court found that the storybooks and the district’s instructions to teachers on how to teach the material “substantially interfered” with the parents’ ability to direct the “religious development” of their children.

The Court also analyzed whether the district possessed a compelling interest to require the contested curriculum materials without allowing an opportunity for parents to “opt out.”  The majority determined that while schools possess compelling interests in maintaining undisrupted learning environments, the district’s policy failed the narrowly tailored requirements because it continued to provide opt-out opportunities for other curricula.  

Operational Impact for California Charter Schools?

The Court provided little guidance regarding what curriculum may be subject to opt-outs. Instead, the Court highlighted the combination of normative messaging, the age of the children, mandatory attendance, and the institutional reinforcement of the content (e.g., in this case, the guidance documents distributed by the Maryland school district discouraged teachers from presenting the book topics as optional or neutral).

California laws have antidiscrimination and other curricular requirements different from those in Maryland. For example, Education Code section 51204.5 explicitly requires schools (including charter schools) to include instruction on the contributions of people from diverse backgrounds, identities, and experiences, including “LGBTQ+ Americans”[2], in social science lessons.  And the CDE has previously provided guidance that allowing parents to opt out from only LGBTQ+ related material in sexual education instruction may violate state antidiscrimination laws. Since federal law overrides conflicting state laws, the CDE is expected to review and revise its guidance on antidiscrimination laws and parental curriculum opt-out policies.

Unfortunately, the Court’s decision is broad and does not clarify or limit the scope of what might qualify as a “sincerely held religious belief” in this context.  However, the Court did signal that not every curriculum dispute triggers a free exercise claim; the Court stated that whether a law “substantially interferes with the religious development” of a child will always be a fact-specific determination.  As such, schools should anticipate parents raising objections to the curriculum that may conflict with their religious beliefs. At a minimum, schools should review their policies regarding religion-based accommodations and ensure that the parameters for opting out are clear and aligned with both the Court’s decision and California law.

[1] Quoted phrases are taken directly from the Supreme Court opinion and are meant to convey the Court’s selected terminology. 
 [2] Quoted text from Education Code section 51204.5

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