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June 1, 2025
A Century Has Passed Since The Supreme Court Clearly Declared Kids Are 'Not Creatures Of The State' - Civil Rights Today Is About Recapturing Parental Rights
100 years ago today, the United States Supreme Court unanimously decided the case ofPierce v. Society of Sisters,a landmark blow in favor of parental rights. The Courts bold words deserve to be recalled today:
The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations (268 US 535).
Piercearose because, amidst post-World War I anti-Catholic activism, Oregon adopted by referendum a law that required all children in the state to attend public schoolsonly. A parent who enrolled his child in a Catholic school would commit a misdemeanor by failing to comply with Oregons compulsory school attendance law.
An order of nuns operating a parochial school brought suit, and the Supreme Court struck down Oregons rule, insisting the state had no right to homogenize education becauseparents have the right to determine how their child is brought up.
That last statement has been recognized for eons as a self-evident truth. British and American common law treated it as a basic legal principle. In that sense,Piercesimply reaffirmed our legal tradition.
Lets not fail to see how far some people want to deviate from it.
The Supreme Court will decide this month the case ofMahmoud v. Taylor.The case comes from Montgomery County, a large school district that borders Washington, D.C. Montgomery County adopted a sex education curriculumincluding components for preschoolers through fifth grade. That curriculum treats the gender ideology agenda as completely normal and to be taught to children who still probably have not been exposed to addition. To top it off, despite Maryland law to the contrary, Montgomery County refused to allow parents to opt out of the curriculum. Outraged parents sued and the case was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in April.
Can one imagine thePierceCourt -- aunanimousCourt -- having concluded that parents could decide their child need not attend apublicschool but if he does go, parents have no say about exposing him to drag queens and leather boys?
Pierceaffirms a basic principle that, until not that long ago, was uncontroverted in American law and is fundamental both to natural law and Catholic social thought: parents are theprimaryeducators of a child. Nobody is ordinarily more invested in or loves that child more. Nobody knows that child better. Nobody has more direct or immediate rights and responsibilities vis--vis that child. Because parents have a responsibility to educate a child, the community supportstheirprimary task through schools. But that role is supportive and subsidiarity: itcannotbe one where the support undermines the right of a parent toraise and educatetheir child.
The parent-child relationship precedes the state. There were parents and children before there were governments. That means that, except in clearly derelict or egregious circumstances, the government cannot usurp parental rights. Well, Montgomery County is trying.
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Its why we also need to watch language. Talk -- especially educational talk -- about partnerships with parents is misleading if the partners are thought to be on equal footing. A child is not somebody to whom various partners make pitches for his attention or approval. A child is a child because, by definition, he stands in a unique and unrepeatable relationship to a parent that he has to no one and nothing else. And a child, as a minor, is the responsibility of a parent, not an adult-in-miniature to whom interested parties sell their agendas in the marketplace of ideas. That, too, is a consequence of the loss of the idea of childhood innocence and vulnerability.
We see this abridgement of parental rights growing. Schools that push sex education curricula contrary to the values of parents are one example: the idea that sex is purely biology with values perspectives freely attached isalreadyan ideological commitment, not a fact. The effort to shield parents from even being aware of how a child is identified in school -- by name, pronoun, and/or sex -- is another egregious example. The idea that the state has some right to push its ideology (often masquerading under the term values) on children in the face of parental objections is another. Thats not education. Its indoctrination.
100 years afterPierce,we are seeing the renaissance of a vibrant parents rights movement. More and more parents are also sayingPierceneeds to be carried forward: it should not be just a question of being able to opt out of the public school but being able to choosewhatever educational environmenta parent determines is the best one in which a given child will thrive. After all, education dollars are foreducating,and the subject of education is a child, not a school. We teach kids, not schools. Schools are just venues where education happens. So, why arepublicschools given a monopoly on educational money?
Most people dont follow carefully what goes on in schools, especially if they dont have children in schools. COVID and on-line learning pulled back the curtain to expose what is going on in schools, and lots of parents did not like what they saw. The proliferation of educational choice programs is the response. The growth of the educational choice movement is closely related to parental rights.
The Heritage Foundation in Washington has just launched a Parents Rights Initiative as a one-point clearinghouse for information in this area. You might want to bookmark it.
A century has passed since the Supreme Court clearly declared kids are not creatures of the state. Neither are parents domestic terrorists for protecting their rights or for standing up to school boards intent on abridging those rights. Todays civil rights movement is about recapturing rights that dont depend on the state to exist.
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