In good school news, last week a Massachusetts Federal Appeals Court upheld the Lexington School Districts right to use books that depict queer families without notifying parents.
The lawsuit was brought by two families who felt that their rights under the free exercise clause were infringed upon when materials promoting tolerance and diversity referenced LGBTQ people. At the heart of the lawsuit was a copy of Who’s in a Family in a “Diversity Book Bag”, a classroom library that included Molly’s Family and a 2nd grade teacher reading King and King. The families asked the school district:
(1) to provide an opportunity to exempt their children from "classroom presentations or discussions the intent of which is to have children accept the validity of, embrace, affirm, or celebrate views of human sexuality, gender identity, and marriage constructs," (2) to allow the parents to observe any such classroom discussions, and (3) to not present any "materials graphically depicting homosexual physical contact" to students before the seventh grade.
The court ruled against the plaintiffs, stating:
“There is no free exercise right to be free from any reference in public elementary schools to the existence of families in which the parents are of different gender combinations."
"Public schools are not obliged to shield individual students from ideas that potentially are religiously offensive, particularly when the school imposes no requirement that the student agree with or affirm those ideas, or even participate in discussions about them."
You can read the whole thing here.
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