The School Curriculum Kerfuffle
Yesterday was oral argument in the U.S. Supreme Court in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case pitting religious liberty of parents against the authority of schools to manage curriculum. The argument is already posted and you can listen to it here.
Conservatives would describe the issue as whether schools can impose “woke” curriculum on students and (they contend) their families. The school district involved responds that the public elects its school boards and these boards respond in ways representative of democracy.
For people who enjoy constitutional law, this is kind of like the Super Bowl of 1st Amendment issues. As we have noted in several earlier posts, we like to think that families should control family related matters. At least until we disagree on what goes on inside the household. The classic example is transgender care. Many Americans would say that is a private family decision. Others stand ready to call a decision to authorize such care a form of abuse.
The case has an interesting demograph dimension. It involves a suburban Washington DC public school district with 210 schools and 160,000 students. The list of plaintiffs demonstrate just how varied suburban Washington schools are. They included Muslims, Roman Catholics and Ukranian Orthodox parents. Their concerns related to curriculum they perceived to promote acceptance of LGBTQ people. The school district initially allowed parents to opt out of these teaching sessions but in 2023 the school district decided this was overwhelming the staff and that the opt-out alternative would be abandoned.
Equally fascinating is the composition of the students. According to US News & World Report the district is 34% Latino/Hispanic; 24% white; 22% African-American and 14% Asian. Five percent are of mixed race. So, this is not your average American school district. Today, Washington DC and its suburbs are an international community where nearly every culture is represented. 80% of these kids go on to some form of college.
Respectfully, these kids are going to encounter hundreds of same sex relationships in their travels. They will inveitably view what they see with one eye towards the teachings of their parents and the other eye firmly trained on rejecting their parents’ prehistoric views of life. I grew up in the 1960s, a world where Roman Catholics and Protestants weren’t supposed to mix. Interracial marriages and single sex relationships were criminal in many states. Well, the message doesn’t seem to have gotten through to the people in our nation’s capital. At 9.8%, Washington has the highest population of LGBTQ people in the United States and I just noted that 5% of the kinds in school are of mixed race.
Now, let’s wander a few miles up the road to South Central Pennsylvania and its Upper Adams School District. I picked this one randomly looking for a touch less diversity than I am going to find inside the much maligned Capital Beltway. Biglerville High School in Adams County is 73% white; 24% hispanic and 2% black. Its biggest religious affiliation is Catholic at 37%. The Lutherns come in second at 17%. After that the numbers get mighty small. I would have perceived this area as Bible Belt Pennsylvania but 25% of the population does not see itself as religiously affiliated and Pew Research sees that trend heading toward 50/50 by 2070.
Many would suggest that this trend toward what some call “Godlessness” as the product of what is being taught in schools. But, to this writer there is a wide gulf separating religious conformity from “Godlessness.” In 1933 you couldn’t drink alcohol, gamble, smoke weed or have an extramarital relationship without risking jail. Baseball on Sunday was not allowed. I grew up a world where the only thing open on Sunday was church. Those were laws of religious conformity. We, as an electorate, have voted to allow all of those sins to be part of our everday life-even on the Sabbath despite the Bible’s Fourth commandment. And while our society fights like hell over abortion and what goes on in our schools, a very high percentage of us spend Sundays with our kids watching football, adjusting our bets on Fanduel, drinking, smoking and otherwise traducing the values which we claim to embrace.
So, let’s examine some of the controversies that keep our local school boards awake at night and pay for their solictors to argue with our tax dollars.
Sex education. Folks, we all need to understand biology. But, once the sex becomes “intimate” it’s best taught at home or, even better, on the internet. I am not talking about the websites you are thinking about. I am talking about directing your child to an on-line program that teaches the importance of “relationships.” Face it; for adults it’s creepy talking to a 12-13-14 year old about sex. It’s even creepier to have your 40 something year old parents talking to you about it. It doesn’t work in the classroom. So, teach the sperm and egg business in school and leave the rest to the parents.
Same sex relationships and transgender feelings. All schools need to teach is that ever since ancient Greece, society has spent billions of hours condemning this conduct. Yet, it has never gone away. Some faiths see these relationships as immoral; others do not. Society’s views have shifted back and forth. Transgender people were pirates and others fought in the American Revolution. Men dressed as women in theatrical performances until the Civil War. If you like the Mummers, realize that every “woman” in Philadelphia’s iconic parade until 1975 was a man in a dress.
Books are the mines in which we explore new ideas. Some of those ideas benefit mankind; some are dangerous. Animal Farm, Gone with the Wind, The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye were all banned. In 1844 Catholics and Protestants in Philadelphia killed each other and burned churches erected to celebrate the same God over which version of the Bible would be used in public schools.
We cannot regulate knowledge. Some people think a million Americans died because of bats in Wuhan. Others want to blame the Center for Disease Control. In 1905 the U.S. Supreme Court voted 7-2 that Massachusetts had the right to insist its citizens be vaccinated against smallpox. 171 U.S. 11. Today, we don’t seem so sure. Some Americans think what happened on January 6, 2021 was an insurrection against the United States. Others see it as a protest. You must read to understand these things and you must read beyond what you want to hear if you wish to be an engaged citizen. Views change. In 1857 the Chief Justice of the United States wrote that black people had no rights which white people had to respect. Much as with the smallpox case, the vote with the Chief Justice was 7-2. 60 U.S. 93. Ironically, five years earlier a homemaker wrote a book about the life of black Americans. It was banned in much of America but the book still sold 300,000 copies and changed the course of American history.
If you want to regulate ideas, abandon the internet. The average school day is less than seven hours. The average teenager is exceeding seven hours doing what he or she wants on the internet. So, while parents and their lawyers are in school board meetings and nearby courts shaking their fists at the people running the schools, their children are reading, watching, texting and forming ideas about their needs, their relationships and their sexuality with little to no guidance.
It would be nice to shield students from some public issues, but its not realistic. When I was a teenager, Amercians were in full fight over whether we belonged in Vietnam. The fight was inter-generational with our parents arguing this was how to limit communism and students and teachers arguing that Vietnam was not our business. Today, we live in a world where older Americans are convinced that limits on Second Amendment rights present threats to democracy. Kids in school are viewing things differently as they were exposed to an average of one school shooting per week in 2024.
You really can’t teach students to “like” or “accept” the lifestyles or viewpoints of others. And you really put kids in a bind where they are taught one set of values at home and another in school. What you can do is teach people to respect others. As we look across today’s cultural and political landscape, we could do with a lot more discussion about respect and a little less involving judgment.
The Supreme Court seems to think they can solve this riddle. My prediction is no fewer than 150 pages of concurring and dissenting opinions which will yield thousands of additional cases where judges will decide whether students can read the works of Oscar Wilde or Truman Capote and whether the cafeteria can offer soda bread on St. Patrick’s Day or kulfi during Diwali. My vote is “yes to both.”