On June 27, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision ruled in favor of the petitioner in Mahmoud v. Taylor, granting parents the right to opt their children out of school curricula that conflict with their religious beliefs – in this case, books featuring LGBTQ+ characters and themes.
Today is a moment where the separation between religion and government grows increasingly blurred. At Tanenbaum, we encourage teaching about world beliefs and religions, and we also believe that upholding a clear boundary between religious belief and public education is essential to protecting religious freedom and religious diversity.
Tanenbaum signed the Mahmoud v. Taylor Brief of Religious and Civil-rights Organizations as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondents drafted by Americans for the Separation of Church and State, which states that religious freedom is harmed when students are opted out of educational materials their parents disagree with. Tanenbaum’s pedagogy supports key components of respectful behavior for K-12 students, as defined in our Six Behavioral Learning Outcomes. This ruling undermines the achievement of those goals, particularly in supporting students to:
- Share self-knowledge about their personal beliefs.
- Demonstrate empathy and compassion for others with different religious and nonreligious beliefs and recognize that religious differences are commonplace in their own families, neighborhoods, classrooms, schools, and extended communities.
When schools expose students to literature that includes diverse identities, it broadens their understanding of the world and strengthens their capacity to build empathy for people different from themselves. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote, “[The] decision guts our free exercise precedent and strikes at the core premise of public schools: that children may come together to learn not the teachings of a particular faith, but a range of concepts and views that reflect our entire society. Exposure to new ideas has always been a vital part of that project, until now.”
Protecting the Free Exercise Clause, which safeguards every citizens’ right to freely practice their religion without government interference, and fostering inclusion for people of all backgrounds are not mutually exclusive – they can and must coexist. It is up to each of us to behave in ways that protect religious freedom and create spaces to respectfully explore identity.