California parents ask high court to take up homeschooling religious case
A group of California parents has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, alleging that state officials violated their First Amendment rights by rejecting religious educational materials for homeschooling. in California,parents can enroll children in an independent study program that allows curriculum choice,which is reviewed by charter schools for compliance with state standards. The parents claim that their chosen curriculum,which includes religious themes and meets state standards,was unfairly rejected by a charter school becuase it contained religious content. The First Liberty Institute, supporting the families, filed a petition urging the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that deemed such homeschooling programs as “public schools,” thus justifying the rejection of religious materials and violating religious freedoms.The parents argue that excluding faith-based materials from homeschooling benefits constitutes a Free Exercise violation and that the state’s policy discriminates against parents wishing to provide religious education at home. The case, titled Woolard v. Thurmond, might be heard by the Supreme Court as early as this fall, amid a docket that includes other notable cases related to religious rights and education.
A group of California parents asked the Supreme Court this week to take up their case alleging that state officials violated their constitutional rights by rejecting the use of religious education materials for homeschooling their children.
In California, parents may enroll their children in an independent study program in which they select curriculum and materials that follow state standards by using state-provided funds. The program then has charter schools review the selected material to ensure it meets state requirements.
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But the parents accused one of these charter schools of rejecting their preferred materials in violation of the families’ First Amendment religious rights. Their chosen curriculum met state education standards, the parents said, and also contained religious themes. First Liberty Institute, a religious liberty legal group backing the families, filed a petition to the Supreme Court asking the justices to reverse a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that sided with California officials in denying the materials for being religious, finding that the homeschool programs are “public schools.”
“One might think it would go without saying that parents teaching their children around the kitchen table aren’t running ‘public school programs.’ But that is precisely what the Ninth Circuit concluded in the decision below. It held that the State of California is free to exclude families who wish to provide faith-based homeschooling to their children from benefits the State offers other families without offending the First Amendment because the homeschool programs are actually ‘public schools,’” lawyers for the parents said in their petition.
The parents claimed the rejected material included the works of William Penn and Jonathan Edwards, which were deemed invalid due to “religious content.” The rejected material also included a “grammar exercise using the sentence ‘God sends the rain to help plants grow’ because the school ‘can’t accept any work sample with any religious wording on it.’”
“This Court’s precedents should have made this an easy case,” the parents’ petition reads. “While a State isn’t obligated to fund education outside its public schools, once it chooses to do so, it can’t exclude religious education from that benefit. What’s more, this Court has recently reaffirmed that ‘[t]he practice of educating one’s children in one’s religious beliefs … receives a generous measure of protection from our Constitution.’
“California’s policy singles out parents who wish to give their children a faith-based education and excludes them from homeschooling benefits and support extended to other California families. That’s an open-and-shut Free Exercise violation,” the parents’ petition continued.
The conservative religious legal group urged the Supreme Court to take up the case, warning it could affect tens of thousands of students across the Golden State and hurt religious rights in schooling throughout the 9th Circuit.
“The Ninth Circuit declared the homes of these parents to be ‘public school programs’ in order to justify the state’s religious discrimination,” Executive General Counsel for First Liberty Institute Hiram Sasser said. “Parents should not be punished for choosing quality religious curriculum meeting the state’s standard that they teach to their own children in their own home just because it’s religious.”
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The Supreme Court will return to holding closed-door conferences to weigh which cases to take up beginning on Sept. 28, and the high court’s next term will begin on Oct. 5 with oral arguments in a key climate change case. A decision on whether the Supreme Court will hear arguments in this religious materials case, titled Woolard v. Thurmond, could come as soon as this fall.
The high court’s upcoming term will also include various other major cases, including a case involving religious rights and schools over Colorado barring Catholic preschools from its universal preschool program. Oral arguments in St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy are scheduled for Nov. 3.
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