In March 2025, Parents Defending Education (PDE) filed an amicus (“friend of the court”) brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in Mahmoud v. Taylor. Maryland’s Montgomery County Board of Education stopped letting parents remove their young children from lessons using storybooks about sexuality and gender identity, even when the lessons conflicted with the families’ religious beliefs. PDE asked the Court to reverse the lower court’s ruling for the school board.
The brief argues:
- Parents’ rights are strongest when it comes to their children’s religious upbringing. The school board’s new lessons on sexuality and gender identity don’t just conflict with what these parents teach their children about their faith; they actively contradict it.
- The lessons do cause harm. The board claims young children can’t be harmed by simply being “expos[ed] to different ideas.” But similar storybooks and nearly identical lesson plans have been used in schools across the country, and students, especially religious students, have shown clear signs of confusion, anxiety, and fear.
- Enrolling in public school doesn’t mean giving up parental rights. The board argues parents have no right to object to what educators choose to teach and give up their rights by enrolling their children. No Supreme Court decision has ever said that, and the government can’t require people to give up fundamental rights in exchange for something as necessary as sending their children to public school.
- This policy is not unusual. School districts across the country have adopted similar policies that shut parents out.
If the lower court’s decision stands, millions of parents will lose the right to guide their children’s education on sensitive issues tied to their religious beliefs and the core of the parent-child relationship. PDE urged the Court to reverse.
Read the full brief below: