(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and 25 other state attorneys general are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to ensure that parents have the final say in their children’s education and religious upbringing.
In an amicus brief, Yost and his counterparts challenge a ruling by a U.S. Court of Appeals allowing a Maryland school district to deny requests from parents to have their children excused from lessons on sexuality that conflict with their religious beliefs.
“District officials have overstepped their authority with an unconstitutional ban on parental discretion,” Yost said. “They have no right to overrule parents who raise religious objections to sex education.”
In 2023, Maryland’s largest school district, Montgomery County Public Schools, announced that parents could no longer opt children out of classwork involving “pride storybooks,” which had been added a year earlier to the district’s elementary school curriculum.
A group of parents sued the school board in federal court, claiming in Mahmoud v. Taylor that the policy violated their religious rights.
In May 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled in favor of the school board. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed in January to hear the case.
The attorneys general argue that the district’s policy is unconstitutional, saying it “permits a local school district to impose its preferred ideology on young, impressionable minds—over their parents’ religious objections.”
They say the appeals court erred in its decision and warn that the ruling endangers the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom and the fundamental right of parents to direct their children’s education.
The brief asks the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the decision and require that schools allow parents to opt children out of sex education, noting that roughly 90% of states give parents that choice.
Even Maryland, the brief says, requires public schools to permit opt-outs from any instruction on “family life and human sexuality.”
Joining Yost in calling for a reversal are the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.