Mahmoud v. Taylor

So of course that extends to education and what happens in public schools.

And so y- you know, I think that there, there has to be some type of enforcement mechanism here because you even see when we have a case like Mahmoud v. Taylor where the Supreme Court very clearly says that parents have the right to opt out of curriculum that, uh, that undermines their religious beliefs or you see with this Mirabelli v. Olson, you know, Supreme Court decision from March which says parents must be involved in, you know, the, the care and the, you know, mental health issues that happen with their child at school.

The, the state of California's response, and again, the, you know, the CSBA's response, the CTA's response, this education cabal, their response is to reject those Supreme Court decisions and basically minimize them to the extent that they don't believe that we have to follow them or that, you know, they have to do anything differently than what they're already doing.

And so that's the really scary part where we really do at some point need the actual Department of Justice to probably intervene and say, "You know, look, the Supreme Court made this clear and you as a state are actively, you know, fighting and resisting a clear Supreme Court decision." You know, I think the, the best person to, you know, the best entity to, uh, to take up that fight would be the, the federal government.

Uh, it also rejected Keillor's arguments that her mother should receive notice and an opportunity to opt her daughter out of the competition.

Uh, this argument, they said, was based in part on the Supreme Court's 2025 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which said that a Maryland school district should provide notice to parents of storybooks with controversial content about gender and sexuality.

The Ninth Circuit said that case and another regarding parents' rights didn't apply to Keillor's situation.

"Ah, that doesn't really apply here.

And that was the case here.

In the case of Mahmoud v. Taylor, which Dennis is going to talk about, that was a higher level of scrutiny applied here where the court struck it down.

So that makes a big difference in these decisions decided by federal courts.

Okay, so as Dan teed up for us, Dennis, there was yet another phase of this litigation, an unrelated case in the Supreme Court, Mahmoud v. Taylor.

Talk about what that held and how that gave the plaintiffs in Miller a shot to come back.

Yeah, absolutely.

So Mahmoud was a landmark opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States that was issued in June of 2025.

And it had implications not only on this subject, but probably is going to have implications continuing into the future.

Um, but I think what's really interesting in this case is the brief the United States filed, which not only does a lot with these exceptions, uh, to make the, the exceptions to Smith broader, but also argues for two kind of categorical exceptions, uh, that, that Smith is not applicable in cases that put conditions on a public benefit at all, and those cases should be governed by a pre-Smith case, uh, called Sherbert and be subject to strict scrutiny.

And also argues under Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case about, um, certain pro-transgender, pro same-sex marriage books, um, that the court decided, uh, two terms ago.

Under that decision, encroachments on children's religious education warrant strict scrutiny.

And I think if the court adopts either of those rules, that would be a much bigger hole in Employment Division v. Smith, and they might be offering, kind of the Justice Barrett, Justice Kavanaugh concurrent subscribers, what they're looking for as a way to really narrow Employment Division v. Smith and without jettisoning it entirely.

Here, the Second Circuit in New York State was told, you need to look again at this case.

And in looking at this case, will you take a close look at Mahmood v. Taylor, our 2025 Supreme Court decision? That decision enjoined Maryland school practices that disallow parents to opt out of LGBTQ curriculum on religious grounds.

First Amendment free exercise grounds, said the court in Mahmood v. Taylor.

Parents get to opt out of that, Maryland.

That same principle, says the U.S. Supreme Court, should be considered here in Miller.

And the Second Circuit issued a decision within the very end of the Supreme Court term on June 30th.

It's a stormy related situation now because of what the Second Circuit basically did.

It literally said, we did look at Mahmood v. Taylor.

They're a problem, and we're concerned about how they impact our rights as well as what they're forcing us to do to parents and to kids." Um, and so you got some good language from the court in those early cases saying that parents have the right to direct their kids' upbringing and education on these topics as well as more broadly.

Um, and then we just had a great, uh, case come out of the US Supreme Court in Mahmoud v. Taylor dealing with books that were being taught at a very young age.

Um, and really the, the heart of that case is saying again that parents direct their kids' education even in the public schools, and so they can opt their kids out of curriculum that's of concern to them.

They have influence on what's being taught to their kids even once they're in the public schools.

That case was mostly based on parental authority.

And then the more recent cases they cite are Mahmoud v. Taylor and the Mirabelli case.

About Mahmoud, the demand letter kind of says that the Supreme Court there obviously held that refusing to opt out burdens a parent's religious exercise, and For those who need a reminder, that was the Minnesota case where it involved LGBTQ curriculum in books.

And the Supreme Court held there that refusing to opt out burdens parents' religious exercise because it forces them to submit their children to instruction that undermines their faith.

And so very strong themes of parental rights coming through education.

Last year, we had Mahmoud V. Taylor, which, again, not a homeschool case.

It was actually a case out of neighboring Maryland.

I'm in here in Virginia, so neighboring Maryland, where there were certain contents in books that parents wanted to opt their kids out of.