In 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an important religious freedom decision, Mahmoud v. Taylor, concluding that a Maryland school district could not prevent parents from opting their children out of classroom discussions about gender and sexuality. In the past decade, the Court had issued several decisions regarding constitutional protections of religious exercise, but this case was different because it involved overlapping issues of religious freedom and parental authority. In its decision, the Court relied on a 1972 case involving Amish families who had been forced to send their children to school even though doing so would be contrary to their religious beliefs.
It is telling that the Court needed to look back more than 50 years to find a similar case.
The Mahmoud decision has given impetus to a number of challenges by parents to laws that they believe interfere with their ability to direct the religious upbringing of their children.
This report will describe constitutional protections for parental authority. What are the sources for such protections? What claims have been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court and the States? What are the current controversies? How can these controversies be understood and approached so as to secure the greatest appropriate protection of parents’ opportunity to act consistently with their beliefs as they rear their children?
