After researching and writing our latest piece on Mahmoud v. Taylor (2025) 606 U.S. __, I am stuck on the fact that the ACLU, of all organizations, filed a brief in this case arguing that parents objecting to the curriculum should pull out of public schools. I am trying out a video post to share my thoughts!
Here’s what I’m trying to wrap my mind around: the ACLU was involved in securing a historic civil rights win in Brown v. Board of Education, ending segregation in American schools. Yet, in Mahmoud v. Taylor, about 70 years later, they advocated a contrary position—that parents whose religious beliefs conflict with the school curriculum must abstain from public education.
This is wrong, and the Supreme Court came down hard on them:
It is both insulting and legally unsound to tell parents that they must abstain from public education in order to raise their children in their religious faiths, when alternatives can be prohibitively expensive and they already contribute to financing the public schools.
(Mahmoud v. Taylor, supra, at p. 34.)
Like many of us, I have a great deal of respect for what the ACLU has accomplished in its history and raise this issue in the hopes they do better next time.
What do you think? Leave a comment!
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