by Maria Wood
In June 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a group of Maryland parents who asked the Court to allow them to remove their young children from lessons with LGBTQ+ themed books. The parents argued that forcing their children to read or hear the literature read aloud interfered with their right to oversee their children’s religious education.
In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Court’s majority directed the Montgomery County School District, located in Maryland just outside of Washington, D.C., to reinstitute its prior policy allowing parents of elementary school students to excuse their children from lessons using material they consider objectionable. The Court granted a preliminary injunction against the school district’s policy prohibiting opt-outs and sent the case back to the lower court for further review.
Case background
Mahmoud v. Taylor began three years ago with the 2022-23 school year when the Montgomery County School District approved several books featuring LGBTQ+ characters for inclusion in the elementary grade level language arts curriculum. The district wanted instructional materials to reflect the diversity of the 160,000 students that attend school in the district. Teachers, parents, students, and staff along with community members collaborated on the selection of the books.
Five books were specifically mentioned in the parents’ lawsuit, including Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, which features the uncle of a young girl marrying another man, and Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope, which tells the story of a five-year-old transgender child. The books were available for students to read, or the teacher could read them to the class. When the curriculum was introduced, the school district allowed parents to opt their children out when those books were read. Essentially, the students were allowed to leave the classroom.
In March 2023, however, the district reversed the opt-out policy and prohibited parents from exempting their child from classes with the LGBTQ+ books. District officials contended that complying with the parents’ wishes disrupted classroom instruction and the opt-out policy had become unwieldly.
The reversal sparked a lawsuit from a group of Muslim, Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox parents who said exposing their young children to LGBTQ+ books violated their freedom to practice their religious beliefs as protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment contains two clauses on religion stating: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
The Establishment Clause prohibits the government from establishing a national religion. The Free Exercise Clause allows individuals to freely practice whatever religion they want, including no religion.
In court filings, the Muslim parents involved in the suit stated, “We believe there are detrimental spiritual consequences from letting authoritative figures such as school teachers teach our children principles concerning sexual and gender ethics that contravene well-established Islamic teachings.” Another set of parents stated, “We believe that much of what is taught via the pride storybooks is false religiously and scientifically.” The parents also pointed out that Maryland is one of 47 states plus the District of Columbia that allow opt-outs for sex education.
The school district, in its court filing, stated that the books in question are not used in lessons related to gender and sexuality and students are not asked or expected to change their views on those subjects. “Instead, the books are made available for individual reading, classroom read-alouds, and other educational activities designed to foster and enhance literacy skills.” In addition, a court declaration from an associate superintendent noted her concerns with opt-outs. “When some students are permitted to leave the classroom whenever language arts lessons draw on books featuring LGBTQ+ characters, students who believe that the books represent them or their families are exposed to social stigma and isolation,” she said.
Lower courts rule for school district
Mahmoud v. Taylor was first heard in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland where the judges ruled the school district policy placed no undue burden on the parents’ religious freedom. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld that decision, ruling, “Simply hearing about other views does not necessarily exert pressure to believe or act differently than one’s religious faith requires.”
Both lower courts denied the parents’ request for a temporary injunction until their lawsuit is resolved. The parents then appealed the Fourth Circuit’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Thomas Healy, a professor at Seton Hall Law School and a constitutional law expert, says the lower courts likely viewed the district’s policy as neutral in that it didn’t single out any one religion for unfavorable treatment.
“The Fourth Circuit Court contended that it doesn’t violate anyone’s free exercise rights to listen to a book being read or having to participate in instruction on certain topics,” Professor Healy says. “The parents were still free to instruct their children however they wanted.”
Supreme Court disagrees
In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the parents’ right to excuse their children from the lessons with LGBTQ+ themed books and granted their request for a temporary injunction, ordering that “until all appellate review in this case is completed, the school board should be ordered to notify them [the parents] in advance whenever one of the books in question or any other similar book is to be used in any way and to allow them to have their children excused from that instruction.”
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito stated the courts have a long history of upholding the rights of parents to direct the religious training of their children.
“A government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill,” Justice Alito wrote in the Court’s majority opinion.
As to the books in question, Justice Alito wrote, “Like many books targeted to young children, the books are unmistakably normative. They are clearly designed to present certain values and beliefs as things to be celebrated and contrary beliefs as things to be rejected.”
Professor Healy explains that the majority on the Court reasoned that the books sent a message about how children should think about an issue rather than just introducing topics for discussion.
“The Court sees the use of these books as a form of indoctrination that violates the parents right to control the religious upbringing of their children,” Professor Healy says.
David B. Rubin, a Metuchen attorney who specializes in school law and represents many New Jersey school districts, explains that the Court relied on the 1972 decision it issued in Yoder v. Wisconsin, which also related to parents directing their children’s religious education. In Yoder, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted Amish parents to take their children out of school after eighth grade.
In Mahmoud v. Taylor, Rubin says, parents from different religious backgrounds offered a convincing argument that the LGBTQ+ materials clashed with the religious teachings they wanted to pass on to their children. It was then up to the district, he says, to counter how the opt-outs presented an excessive administrative burden on the schools.
“The school district couldn’t come up with any good reason why they couldn’t accommodate the requests considering they allowed such removals previously,” Rubin explains.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “Today’s ruling threatens the very essence of public education…That decision guts our free exercise precedent and strikes at the core premise of public schools: that children may come together to learn not the teachings of a particular faith, but a range of concepts and views that reflect our entire society.”
In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor pointed out that permitting opt-outs creates an administrative burden on schools, pushing them to make a hard choice.
“Schools may instead censor their curricula, stripping material that risks generating religious objections. The Court’s ruling, in effect, thus hands a subset of parents the right to veto curricular choices long left to locally elected school boards,” she wrote.
Justice Sotomayor also expressed concern over isolating children from a multicultural society and exposure to ideas or concepts that conflict with their parents’ religious beliefs. She wrote that “to practice living in our multicultural society is critical to our nation’s civic vitality.”
What Mahmoud means for New Jersey schools
Rubin emphasizes that the Court’s decision placed no limits on what could be taught in schools.
“The Court simply said that if parents have a sincere religious objection to the way a lesson is taught, they could choose to opt out unless the school district can show some real, compelling reason why that would be unworkable.”
In January 2019, New Jersey passed a law requiring that the history and contributions of individuals with disabilities, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons be taught at the middle and high school level. In November 2025, the New Jersey Department of Education sent a memo clarifying what is expected from New Jersey school districts in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Mahmoud.
The memo acknowledges that there must be opt-out policies and procedures in place for religious objections but emphasizes that the instruction requirements have not changed. The memo states: “The Mahmoud decision does not change these curricular requirements….Moreover, because the opt-out provision applies only to individual parents who express a religious objection, it does not permit a district, school or grade level to proactively omit instruction in these areas from their curriculum.”
Although the U.S. Supreme Court sent Mahmoud v. Taylor back to a lower court, Rubin says it’s unlikely the decision will change unless new evidence emerges. He expects a permanent injunction will be put in place.
“The Supreme Court has tipped its hand, if you will, on where they’re coming down on the broader legal issue,” Rubin says. “I would be highly surprised if by the time the litigation concludes there’s any different result.”
Discussion Questions
- Do you agree or disagree with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor? Explain your answer?
- Do you think there are benefits to being exposed to ideas or concepts that differ from your own? Why or why not?
- What do you think Justice Sotomayor meant by “to practice living in our multicultural society is critical to our nation’s civic vitality”? Explain.
Glossary Words
affirm—to uphold, approve or confirm.
appealed—when a decision from a lower court is reviewed by a higher court.
appellate—dealing with applications for a court decision to be reversed.
dissenting opinion—a statement written by a judge or justice that disagrees with the opinion reached by the majority of their colleagues.
indoctrination—the process of teaching a group to accept a certain set of beliefs without question.
injunction—a judicial order that requires halting a specific action.
majority opinion—a statement written by a judge or justice that reflects the opinion reached by the majority of their colleagues.
negligence—the failure to use the care that a reasonable person would use.
normative—establishing a standard of behavior.
transgender—a person whose gender identity—their deeply held knowledge of their gender—and/or their expression of gender is different from cultural expectations based on the gender they were assigned at birth.
upheld—supported; kept the same.
veto—to reject.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2026 edition of Respect, NJSBF’s diversity and inclusion newsletter.