Docket 24-297
Mahmoud
DecidedJun 27, 2025
6-3decision
Source: CourtListener.
Parents win right to opt children out of LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks in public elementary schools
What it does
The Court held that the Montgomery County school board's no-opt-out policy places an unconstitutional burden on the religious exercise of parents who hold sincere religious beliefs about marriage, sex, and gender. The ruling requires the school board to give affected parents advance notice whenever the challenged storybooks (or similar books) are used in instruction, and to allow those parents to excuse their children from that instruction. Because the burden is of the same character as the one found unconstitutional in Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), the Court applied strict scrutiny — the most demanding legal standard — and found the board's policy failed that test.
Who benefits
Parents with sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage, sex, and gender whose children attend public elementary schools, and who object on religious grounds to specific curricular materials that conflict with those beliefs. Elementary school students whose parents invoke this opt-out right.
Who is affected
Public school boards and administrators who must now provide advance notice and opt-out accommodations to religiously objecting parents for curricular materials that substantially conflict with their religious beliefs. Students who remain in class during opt-out periods, and LGBTQ students and families whose representation in school curricula may be reduced as a practical consequence.
Practical impact
While this ruling is a preliminary injunction (not a final judgment on the merits), it immediately requires the Montgomery County school board to notify the petitioning parents before using the five challenged storybooks or similar materials in any way, and to allow their children to be excused from that instruction. More broadly, the ruling signals to public school districts nationwide that religiously motivated parental opt-out requests from specific curricular materials may trigger strict constitutional scrutiny, potentially requiring schools to restructure how they integrate materials that carry normative messages on topics touching religious belief — particularly for young children.
Majority — Alito
Joined by: Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett
The majority held that the Free Exercise Clause protects parents' right to direct the religious upbringing of their children, and that this right is violated when a government policy poses "a very real threat of undermining" the religious beliefs parents wish to instill. The Court reasoned that the five storybooks are unmistakably normative — designed to present certain values about same-sex marriage and gender identity as things to be celebrated, and contrary views as things to be rejected — and that young, impressionable elementary school children are especially susceptible to accepting those moral messages from authority figures. The majority further found that the board's teacher guidance, which encouraged teachers to affirm the books' viewpoints and to tell students who expressed contrary views that their comments were "hurtful," went far beyond mere exposure to new ideas and created the kind of psychological pressure to conform that Yoder found unconstitutional. Because this burden is of the same character as the one in Yoder, the Court applied strict scrutiny and concluded the board's no-opt-out policy failed that standard, since the board already permitted opt-outs in numerous other contexts — including for sex education and non-curricular activities — undermining its claim that opt-outs here were administratively impossible. The Court ordered the board to provide advance notice and opt-out rights to the petitioning parents for the challenged books and any similar materials while the lawsuit continues.
Dissent reasoning
The dissent argued that the majority invented a new constitutional right with no basis in the Court's precedent: the right to avoid exposure to school materials that carry messages inconsistent with a parent's religious beliefs. Justice Sotomayor wrote that the Free Exercise Clause has always been understood to prohibit the government from compelling individuals to give up or act against their religious beliefs — not to require the government to shield children from ideas that might conflict with those beliefs — and that mere exposure to objectionable ideas has never, in any prior case, been held to constitute a free exercise violation. The dissent contended that the majority badly misread Wisconsin v. Yoder, which involved a law that affirmatively compelled Amish parents to send their children away from home during a critical period of religious formation, and that the Court's own decision in Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Ass'n (1988) had already explicitly rejected the reading of Yoder that the majority now adopts. The dissent warned that the majority's new "very real threat" test has no meaningful limiting principle: given the enormous diversity of religious beliefs in the United States, countless books, teacher interactions, field trips, and classroom activities could trigger strict scrutiny, imposing impossible administrative burdens on public schools and effectively handing a subset of parents veto power over curricula that have long been left to democratically elected local school boards. Justice Sotomayor also argued that the majority reached beyond the question presented by deciding the strict scrutiny issue that the Fourth Circuit had not addressed, and that the democratic process — including a recent election that replaced three of seven board members — was already producing accountability without judicial intervention.
Constitutional question
Does a public school board's policy of using LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks in elementary school classrooms — without giving religious parents advance notice or the ability to excuse their children from that instruction — unconstitutionally burden parents' right to the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment?
Precedent changed
The ruling extends Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) beyond its original context of compulsory school attendance laws, applying its principle to specific curricular materials within an otherwise voluntary public school setting. The lower courts' treatment of Yoder as limited to its specific facts ("sui generis") is explicitly rejected and reversed.