Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on SCOTUSblog, which was acquired by The Dispatch in April. To get all of SCOTUSblog’s coverage of the Supreme Court term, be sure to sign up here.
Mahmoud v. Taylor, decided last Friday, is likely to be viewed by some as a culture war win for religious conservatives. But the opinion itself tells a more complex story. Rather than issuing a broad license to censor or erase LGBTQ+ identities from public schools, the Supreme Court offered a nuanced intervention, one that underscores the constitutional significance of living in a pluralist society, especially when the state mandates moral instruction for young children without offering a way out.
At issue was a decision by Montgomery County Public Schools, which had introduced a series of LGBTQ+-inclusive picture books into its K-5 English Language Arts curriculum. The books include Prince & Knight, a fairy tale in which a prince falls in love with a male knight and they marry to widespread joy, and Born Ready, the story of a young transgender child named Penelope who tells their mother, “I don’t feel like a boy—I am a boy.” Originally, parents who objected for religious reasons were allowed to opt their children out of instruction using the books. But in March 2023, the school board reversed course, banning opt-outs and stating that students and families “may not choose to opt out of engaging with” these books, even when they conflict with religious teaching.
Parents from Muslim, Catholic, Orthodox Christian, and other faith backgrounds sued, claiming the policy violated their right to raise their children in accordance with their religious beliefs. A Maryland district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled against them, but the Supreme Court reversed.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito grounded the decision in a familiar source: the court’s 1972 ruling in Wisconsin v. Yoder, a landmark case in which the court ruled that Amish parents could not be forced to keep their children in high school past eighth grade. The Amish argued that the structure, content, and peer environment of public high school would undermine their religious formation. The court agreed, holding that the state’s interest in compulsory education did not justify the “substantial interference” with religious upbringing.
In Mahmoud, the court used Yoder not as a relic but as a living precedent. It found that the mandatory inclusion of these storybooks—combined with their moral messaging, the young age of the students, and the refusal to offer opt-outs—similarly created a substantial burden on parents’ ability to guide their children’s religious development.
Critically, the court didn’t say that merely exposing children to ideas contrary to their faith is unconstitutional. Alito acknowledged that not every curriculum dispute triggers a free exercise claim. The key, he explained, is the combination of normative messaging and institutional reinforcement. The majority pointed not only to the content of the books, which portrayed same-sex marriage and gender transition as joyful and self-affirming, but also to the teacher guidance documents distributed by MCPS.
Those documents instructed teachers on how to respond to student questions or objections. If a child said that “a boy can’t marry a boy,” teachers were told to respond, “Two men who love each other can decide they want to get married.” If a student said a character can’t be a boy if he was born a girl, the teacher should say, “That comment is hurtful.” One prompt advised teachers to explain that “[w]hen we’re born, people make a guess about our gender and label us ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ based on our body parts. Sometimes they’re right and sometimes they’re wrong.” Teachers were told to “[d]isrupt either/or thinking” and were discouraged from presenting these topics as optional or neutral.
In short, this was not passive exposure to diversity. It was, in the court’s words, a curriculum “designed to present certain values and beliefs as things to be celebrated, and certain contrary values and beliefs as things to be rejected.” And when combined with mandatory attendance, a lack of opt-out rights, and the young age of the students—some as young as five—the court found that this amounted to more than discomfort. It was a constitutional burden on religious formation.
The ruling also addresses a key concern raised by the dissent and echoed in media coverage: Won’t this open the floodgates to religious opt-outs for anything controversial? Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that the court’s decision could unravel inclusive curricula and allow parents to demand exemptions from learning about evolution, racial justice, or civil rights. But the majority pushed back on this slippery slope argument. It emphasized that not every disagreement qualifies. What matters is whether there is real pressure to conform, especially for children too young to distinguish between teaching and endorsement, and especially when the state refuses to offer any procedural accommodation. The court’s ruling is about a specific kind of burden, not every discomfort or value clash. By anchoring its decision in the unique combination of age, moral framing, and the elimination of opt-outs, the court signaled that Mahmoud is a narrow holding—not a green light for widespread curricular objection.
For advocates working at the intersection of religious liberty and public education, this case is both a warning and a roadmap. The warning is clear: Ignoring procedural pluralism—by eliminating opt-outs and dismissing religious objections as mere bigotry—risks violating constitutional protections. But the roadmap is more hopeful. If school districts want to honor inclusion without coercion, they must offer parents meaningful ways to participate and dissent. Opt-out policies, clear notice, and open dialogue with families aren’t threats to diversity—they’re how pluralism works in practice.
The lesson of this case isn’t that LGBTQ+ stories should be removed from schools. It’s that inclusion must be paired with choice. When public schools act as both educators and moral guides, they carry a responsibility to make space for conscience, not just as a matter of fairness, but as a matter of constitutional law. In a pluralistic democracy, protecting diversity means more than celebrating many voices—it means leaving room for meaningful dissent. The Supreme Court has now made that much clear.
