(NEW YORK)— Reflecting on oral arguments today in the Mahmoud v. Taylor case, PEN America urged the Supreme Court to reject imposing court-mandated classroom “opt outs” in response to Maryland public school parents who don’t want their children exposed to LGBTQ-themed books.
Rather than sending the case back to the lower courts to determine whether the actual use of the story books at issue in this case infringes on the exercise of their religion, the parents who sued the Montgomery County, MD school district want the Supreme Court to rule that mere exposure to those books violates their religious rights.
The writers and free expression group said that imposing constitutionally-mandated opt outs on religious grounds would omit any consideration of countervailing free expression rights of broader groups of students and authors. It would also stigmatize LGBTQ students and families, who would watch their peers leave classrooms when books that include LGBTQ characters or themes are used. Additionally, these students would not see themselves or their own families represented in school books that routinely use stories about families.
Such a mandate could result in books with these themes being eliminated altogether from classrooms across the country – an avowed goal of the movement to ban books in schools that PEN America has tracked since 2021, counting more than 16,000 instances nationwide.
“A Court-imposed opt out would fail to even consider the rights of students and authors, which are also at issue in this case,” said Eileen Hershenov, PEN America’s chief legal officer. “It’s a recipe for an administrative nightmare for public schools, and could result in students receiving a far narrower education. We urge the Court not to mandate what public school students can and cannot be exposed to.”
Hershenov, said: “We reiterate today that we stand with the authors, illustrators, educators and readers who are defending stories and characters that affirm the reality students experience everyday – a world with LGBTQ+ families and friends, a world where we educate children to view others with kindness and respect even when we disagree.”
PEN America filed an amicus brief in Mahmoud v. Taylor, The school district, which PEN America’s brief supports, found that individual opt-outs, regardless of their reason, were not workable as a practical matter and in this case also stigmatized other students and their families.
PEN America has been at the forefront of documenting the sweeping book bans in public schools with numerous reports exposing a troubling effort by conservative activists to remove ideas predominantly related to race and racism, African American history, and LGBTQ subjects. This censorship campaign has not been seen since the Red Scare era of the 1950s.
About PEN America
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Learn more at pen.org.
Contact: Suzanne Trimel, [email protected], (201) 247-5057