Since the early 1900s, parental rights have been disputed in America’s courts. From circuit courts to the U.S. Supreme Court, your right to direct the education and care of your child has been molded and shaped by various cases and legislation all over America. See how the Parental Rights Foundation, led by William Estrada, is fighting for parents and what you can do to help!
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– WHAT IS THE NOAH WEBSTER EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION? –
Noah Webster Educational Foundation collaborates with individuals and organizations to tell the story of America’s education and culture; discover foundational principles that improve it; and advance practice and policy to change it.
Website: https://www.nwef.org
Reach out: info@nwef.org
Since the early 1900s, parental rights have been disputed in America’s courts. From circuit courts to the U.S. Supreme Court, your right to direct the education and care of your child has been molded and shaped by various cases and legislation all over America. See how the Parental Rights Foundation, led by William Estrada, is fighting for parents and what you can do to help!
Resources from Today’s Episode:
GET CONNECTED WITH NWEF
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nwef.org/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NWEF_org
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nwef_org/
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtdHayyOqPftVoiGEqxYdsg
To hear more from NWEF, subscribe to our other podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1898310
– WHAT IS THE NOAH WEBSTER EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION? –
Noah Webster Educational Foundation collaborates with individuals and organizations to tell the story of America’s education and culture; discover foundational principles that improve it; and advance practice and policy to change it.
Website: https://www.nwef.org
Reach out: info@nwef.org
ANNOUNCER: Are parental rights fundamental? If so, why? Today’s guest, William Estrada of the Parental Rights Foundation, has spent years studying parental rights legislation and fighting for parental rights in Virginia. Join Melvin on The State of Education to find out the history of parental rights in America and what you can do to preserve this fundamental right.
ADAMS: Today, I’m pleased to have William A. Estrada, Esquire, in the studio with us. He is the president of the nonprofit Parental Rights Foundation. Now I’ve been acquainted with Mr. Estrada for a number of years as we’ve both worked in areas related to education policy and reform.
Prior to his work with Parental Rights Foundation, he served as a Civil Rights analyst for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS agency) from 2018 to 2021.
Before that he worked with the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, the action group, for a number of years. And that’s particularly where we had some interaction earlier on. So, Will, it's great to have you with us today, and welcome to The State of Education.
ESTRADA: Melvin, I’ve always loved working with you over the years and it’s an honor to be on. Thank you!
ADAMS: Well you’re welcome. And I’m looking forward to our conversation today. Well what I’d like us to do today is have a conversation about parental rights, okay? Natural Law, Statutory Law, Supreme Court Rulings, and other case stuff.
You’re well versed in that. I want parents, especially, to be informed and know how they should and can get involved in this issue. So why don’t we start off like this? For our listeners, who may be new to this whole idea of parental rights, what do we mean by parental rights? Why don’t you start there?
ESTRADA: Melvin, that’s a great question and it really starts with, “What is the foundation of society?” Is it government? Is it the State? Is it, as I would believe, the family? And it’s difficult to have this sort of conversation unless you go back to the beginning.
And in the Jewish and Christian faith traditions, it goes back to the Creation story where God created the first man and the first woman and brought them together in a family and told them, “Be fruitful and multiply and take possession over the earth.”
And that was the creation of the family. We read in the Jewish and Christian faith traditions again in Deuteronomy 6 the importance of parents being the ones to raise up their children.
And you know interestingly enough we’ve got that kind of faith tradition beginning. But even the Greek philosopher, Aristotle for example, said that the family is the foundation of society.
Now, interestingly enough, even the Greeks disagreed. Plato, for example, in The Republic, he has this… people who've studied ancient Greek ask was kinda tongue-in-cheek, or was it what he truly believed?
But he had talked about these guardians, Plato did, who would… the wives would be in common, the children would be in common, those with disabilities would be killed essentially. That was what Plato said.
But Aristotle, among whom our founders really looked at for the foundation of our country, said that the family was the beginning of society. William Blackstone said the same thing that again, it’s the parents, not the state, who are responsible.
So when we have that question of what do parental rights mean? It’s not this parents v. children that I’ve sometimes seen people argue about. It’s really who’s going to make the decisions over how minor children who are still developing emotionally, who don’t have yet the full capacity to make decisions for their life, who’s going to make these decisions?
The state? Government? Bureaucrats? Or will it be parents? And I believe, and I know you agree, it should be parents. Not the state. Obviously, the state steps in. As a Christian, in Romans 13, that the state is there to come down on evil-doers. So there is a purpose for the state if parents or caregivers are abusive or threatening the lives of their children.
But in general, that’s where our court precedent goes to. It should be parents, not the state, who are primarily responsible for their children. It should be parental rights when it comes to the education, upbringing, care, nurture, and raising of children.
ADAMS: But I would also hear that we’re talking about rights, that’s a huge word in our society today. You can’t have rights without responsibility. And so let’s tie that in here just a little bit. Because, really, it’s parental rights but it’s parental responsibility as well.
ESTRADA: You know, it’s a humbling honor to be the president of the Parental Rights Foundation, our sister organization, parentalrights.org, which is our lobbying arm, was created 15 years ago. And our vision and mission statement of both organizations is “Protecting children by empowering parents.”
And so you’re absolutely correct. I remember that line in the spiderman movies: “With great power comes great responsibility.” My wife and I have 2 boys, a 10 and 5. And being a dad and being entrusted, as I would say by God, to raise these two boys to one day be young men, is one of the greatest honors, privileges, and responsibilities that my wife and I will ever have.
And you’re absolutely correct. You can’t have rights if you don’t also recognize that it is a humbling responsibility. It’s difficult work, as any parent would say. But it’s incredibly rewarding work.
And when you go to the debates that our founders had when our constitution was being drafted in 1787, there was that understanding. I remember James Madison said that “our constitution was made for a moral and religious people that is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
And so there’s that self-government that you have to have. That responsibility. That respect for human life, for example—respect for the dignity of the human person. That you’ve got to have or else our entire system of self-government and individual liberty is really going to collapse on its head.
And that’s one of the things that we acknowledge and we help parents with at the Parental Rights Foundation. Education experts on our own podcast. We talk about how you have that loving relationship with your children. Because that’s what all of this is really built upon.
ADAMS: Yeah. I think a lot of time people look at this issue and they’re just more recently becoming engaged with what’s happening in public schools over the last year, or two years perhaps.
This whole whose rights and responsibilities are these? Is it the school that makes these decisions or is it the parents that make these decisions? And so this has kinda really ramped up into the public square.
But what I’m hearing you say is this is not a new issue. This is a long-time issue. So would you dig into that a little bit? More for us? Because there is so much precedent and legal stuff, cases, and all kinds of stuff. Why don’t you jump into that and help inform our listeners about the long track record here that sets precedent for where we are today?
ESTRADA: Oh, absolutely, Melvin. And I think what you’re saying right there is so important to remember that these debates over the role of the state, public schools, who’s in charge of raising children.
They’re not new debates. When you look back at our nation’s history, and particularly the U.S. Supreme court precedents and the court cases that have really espoused the issue of parental rights—they start 100 years ago.
In 1787, our constitution was drafted, and George Washington was our first president. In the first 100, 120 years of our country’s history, there actually were no cases that went up to the U.S. Supreme Court about parental rights. It was well-recognized that parents were the people responsible for raising their children. The state was small. You didn’t have a lot of government involvement in these issues.
It wasn’t until the turn of the century, so early 1900s, that these debates really started. And they were first rooted in immigration, mass immigration, and unfortunately, xenophobia that was happening in the early part of the 1900s in our country.
You’ll remember there was a great deal of immigration primarily from poor Europeans who were coming to our country. Many of them were Roman Catholic as well and there was an anti-Catholic bias. We all know the history of the Blaine amendments which were first intended…
Senate Blaine was trying to get an amendment to the constitution to enact these Blaine amendments. He narrowly failed in that. And then they became State statutes or constitutional amendments and the majority of states in our country have them.
But these first laws that were really challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court were rooted in this xenophobia and anti-Catholic bias. And it was 1923, so next year will be the 100th anniversary, the first time that one of these cases went up to the Supreme Court.
It was Meyer v. Nebraska. The state of Nebraska passed a law saying that children could not be instructed in any other language other than English. It had a small carve-out for language studies, but it had to be beyond a certain grade, it had to be very regulated.
And so the state of Nebraska was trying to advance only English and crack down on immigrants. So Mr. Meyer was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. He was teaching a German immigrant, a 10-year-old boy, how to read, using the German Bible and he was prosecuted by the state of Nebraska.
This case went up to the U.S. Supreme court and the Court struck down Nebraska’s banning instruction in a different language. And here’s what the U.S. Supreme Court said—this was the first case that outlined parental rights as a fundamental right (fundamental rights are the highest protection in our country, the highest level of rights).
The U.S. Supreme Court said in 1923, “The individual has certain fundamental rights which must be respected.” Then a little bit later they’re talking about the U.S. constitution’s amendment's due process clause, and the U.S. Supreme Court kinda gave the money quote where they said,
“Without doubt, it denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home, to bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.”
So, Melvin, that was the first case that really got into parental rights as a fundamental right. If you want, I can go through the other cases. You tell me what would be best.
ADAMS: Yeah! Let’s dig into a few more of those. Because I think these cases established the precedent and I think it’s important for our audience to know this is not a one-off kind of thing. But before we continue, you mentioned the Blaine amendments. We hear about that a lot. Talk to our audience about the real crux of that. I know but talk to us.
ESTRADA: So Blaine amendments were specifically prohibitions on state funds going to private schools.
ADAMS: Is it just private schools or is it private schools that instruct from a faith-based…
ESTRADA Sectarian schools—you’re absolutely right. Private sectarian schools. So think of Catholic schools and Jewish schools. Nowadays it would be Christian schools. So you’re absolutely right. Private sectarian, private religious schools. What we would think of as the local Catholic, local Christian school down the road.
ADAMS: Yeah.
ESTRADA: And it might seem mind-boggling to us but in the early 1900s they were trying to do this. It almost seems like hostility to religion. But the public schools were primarily protestant at the time. There was still prayer in schools, there was the pledge of allegiance, and there was Bible reading in schools.
The Gideons, I’m a member of the Gideons International, they were invited into the public schools in the early 1900s to come share the gospel and give out New Testaments to students.
And it was primarily hostility to the Roman Catholic private schools. Because many devout Roman Catholic parents at the time said, “Well, we don’t want to have this protestant education that’s in the public schools. We want to create our own private schools.”
And the interesting thing is, while Blaine amendments have not been overtly or specifically struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme court, they’re basically on life support.
There’ve been a lot of cases recently dealing with government funds, especially state funds going to private religious schools. I think of the Trinity Lutheran Case. There was recently a case that came out of Maine as well where the Supreme Court struck down Maine’s prohibition on those funds going to private schools.
But it really goes to are these state funds? Or are the taxpayer dollars? And that’s what the courts have been looking at—that these are taxpayer dollars, we’re all taxed, and that it’s a violation of religious liberty (the establishment clause) for state governments to say, “We’re only going to give these funds to secular private schools, not to religious private schools as well.”
So I think the Supreme Court has been getting it right. I think the Blaine amendments are pretty much on borrowed time. There may not even be a need for the U.S. supreme court to specifically strike down Blaine Amendments as unconstitutional.
Most of that foundation has been laid in so many words. I was reading one of the Supreme Court cases recently and I think it was out of Montana and Justice Alito, who is a devout Roman Catholic, actually concluded in his concurrence a picture of a political cartoon that was around the time of the Blaine amendments.
And it showed Joseph Blaine on the banks of a river protecting children from these crocodiles coming out of the river and they’re wearing these Catholic bishop or Catholic Pope hats. And you can kind of really see the anti-Catholic bigotry that was going on at the time with these Blaine amendments that prohibited taxpayer dollars from going to sectarian K-12 private schools.
ADAMS: Thank you for elaborating on that further. I believe we will see more changes in that whole area on a state-by-state level as this whole conversation advances. But let’s go back a little bit more and dig into a few more cases to help our audience understand.
I heard you give a presentation a while back and you kind of laid out several cases. Some things were very clear from the Supreme Court and then some other legislative issues and some things that are still a little tenuous. But talk about that because I think it’s important for people to understand what the law says about these things.
And at the end of the day, as parents of children, particularly as we relate to education here, but it goes well beyond education, right? This whole issue goes well beyond education. But certainly, our focus and the focus of this conversation is particularly around parental decisions regarding their child’s education.
And we want people to be well informed on this issue so that they can make decisions with confidence, knowing that if they’re challenged, there is precedent and they can push back and make sure that they have their proper influence on their children.
ESTRADA: Absolutely Melvin. And we talked about Meyer v. Nebraska in 1923, and the next case was in 1925: Pierce v. Society of Sisters. And this actually flows in very well with the discussion we just had about the Blaine amendments, and the bigotry against Roman Catholics, and private religious schools at the time.
The state of Oregon actually passed a law that prohibited parents from sending their children to private schools. The Society of Sisters was a Roman Catholic private school in Oregon and so the school and the parents filed a lawsuit against Oregon’s law.
Interestingly enough, this is a clear example of the anti-Catholic bigotry that was happening at the time because the Oregon legislature said, “We don’t want kids to go to private school, public school is the only one they can go to.”
The KKK, the Ku Klux Klan, was significantly involved in the lobbying of the Oregon Legislature and in support of this law. It went up to the U.S.Supreme Court and the Court struck down Oregon’s law. It was a great quote, it’s one of my favorite quotes.
“The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this union repose, excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only.
“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” (sort of like we were talking about with that responsibility) to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations”
It was a really strong case carving out the right of parents, not the state, to decide how children should be raised, educated, and cared for. Then fast forward to 1972. This was the case of Wisconsin v. Yoder. And the state of Wisconsin had a compulsory attendance statute requiring children to go to school up until grade 12.
And the parents in this case were old-order Amish, they were Mennonites and they said, “We want our children to go to the public schools up until grade 8, then they know reading, writing, arithmetic, they know what they need to know to be productive members of society.
“Then we want them to come home and grow up in our faith.” So learning how to farm and work in their community. They were actually prosecuted in the state of Wisconsin. The Jury gave them a $5 fine and the plaintiffs in this case, the parents, were actually going to pay the fine.
And it was a Mennonite lawyer who said, “This is going to set a terrible precedent for people of faith, for parents, for parental rights.” and urged them, notwithstanding their nonresistant approach toward the government to appeal the case.
And so the case went up to the U.S. Supreme Court and the Court struck down this punishment of a $5 fine that the parents had been administered. And they said, here’s a great quote, “This case involves the fundamental interest of parents as contrasted with that of the state to guide the religious future and education of their children.
The history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition.”
Interestingly enough, Melvin, right around this time is when homeschooling began to see a resurgence. You know, in the 60s, prayer was taken out of schools, you had the sexual revolution, you had a lot of what I would say is the seeds being laid of the fruit that we’re now reading in public education—being laid in the 60s and 70s.
And so as parents in the 70s or early 80s were beginning to pull their children out of public schools to look to homeschooling, they were relying on these cases Wisconsin v. Yoder, Meyer v. Nebraska, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, to lay that legal foundation for parents to be able to have the right to direct the education of their children.
When Homeschool Legal Defense Association where I worked for 14 years as an attorney, was founded in 1983 by Mike Ferris and Mike Smith. Homeschooling was illegal in most of the 50 states, there were a couple where it was still legal, but they were relying on these Supreme Court cases and this precedent to argue that parents should have the right to direct the education, upbringing, and raising of their children.
And then one more U.S. Supreme Court case I want to cite. This was more recent. Troxel v. Granville, it was a case in 2000. And this, unlike the other three cases, was not an education case. It was a grandparent visitation case that came out of the state of Washington.
Washington had a very broad visitation statute. But anyone who wanted to say, “I want to have a relationship with an individual child” didn’t even need to be a family member, or even a grandparent, could file suit notwithstanding what the parents wished.
And the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Washington's visitation statute and said, “The liberty interest at issue in this case, the interest of parents and the care, custody, and control of their children, is perhaps one of the oldest fundamental liberty interests recognized by this court.”
And then if you go back and read Troxel v. Granville, you’ll see there are a couple of paragraphs that lay out all these supreme court cases (Meyer v. Nebraska, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, Wisconsin v. Yoder, and other cases as well.)
And then the Court continued, “in light of this extensive precedent it cannot now be doubted that the due process clause of the 14th amendment protects the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”
So, Melvin, that’s where parental rights are right now. We've gone back to the Jewish and Christian faith traditions and looked at the Greek philosophers. Blackstone supported parental rights. And then in our country, parental rights are fundamental. Those are the four, what I call seminal, Supreme Court cases that have laid that out.
I think as we discuss this further, some cases have limited the role of parents in public education. But the right of parents generally to be able to make these decisions to choose a homeschool, to choose a private school, to have the freedom, absent state coercion, has been well laid-out by the Supreme Court. Currently, the debate is about how many rights should parents in public schools have over the education of their children.
ADAMS: Thank you for sharing all that. That’s very, very informative. It certainly gives a lot of perspective. And what we’re seeing is some states like Florida and several other states now, coming out with the states actually doing legislation on parental rights and promoting that. Do you have anything you want to share on that?
ESTRADA: Oh absolutely, Melvin. I think a good way to set it up is first looking at what’s happened with parental rights since Troxel v. Granville in 2000 in the context of public schools.
So like we were just saying, parental rights are fundamental. The right of parents to choose how to educate, raise, and care for their children. But the circuit courts and the U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t yet weighed in, some cases are winding their way, and they’re still probably two of three years from a major Supreme Court case outlining the rights that you as a parent have over the public education of your children.
But right now, the circuit courts, are the intermediate level of Federal courts. There are federal district courts, then there are U.S. Circuits, and there are multiple Federal Circuits. You hear many times about the “9th circuit” the “1st Circuit” or the “4th Circuit.” And then there’s the U.S. Supreme Court.
So the Federal circuits have generally ruled against parents when they want to be involved in their children’s education in public schools. And the interesting thing is the circuits have said, “Well, if too many parents get involved then it’s going to be wild west in the public school.”
And so they’ve said, “If parents don’t like what’s going on in the public school, then they should look to state legislatures and school boards.” So the circuits have really said, “School boards, you have authority. State legislatures, state governors, state secretaries of education, you have authority.”
I want to go over a couple of these circuit court cases. And in general, they’re all pretty bad when it comes to parental rights in education. The first one was out of the 9th circuit. It was in 2005, it was called Fields v. Palmdale. The Palmdale school district had a survey for elementary school kids. And again, this was 2005, and two of the questions for 7-10-year-olds in this public school in California dealt with students’ frequency of “thinking about having sex” and “thinking about touching other people’s private parts.”
Again, these are elementary school kids. When you’re thinking about the issues that we read in the news and see on TV. You know, this was 2005. This was 17 years ago. And there were still these issues.
The parents filed suit. They said this was ridiculous and egregious and it violated their parental rights of the children receiving this survey. And the courts struck it down. And the original three-judge panel decision was a bad decision. They said, “Parental rights end at the schoolhouse door.”
And then the parents filed for what’s called an en banc review where the entire 9th circuit, not just a 3-judge panel, would review. The court denied the en banc review but they did kinda walk-back some of the more egregious provisions.
So I’m going to read from the denial of the en banc, but still kind of affirming the decision, saying, “No, parents, you don’t have a right to file suit.” So the en banc denial decision said, “In sum, we affirm that the Meyer-Peirce due process right of parents to make decisions regarding their children’s education does not entitle individual parents to enjoin school boards, from providing information the boards determine to be appropriate in connection with the performance of their educational functions.”
So they denied parental rights if it goes to educational functions. That’s a pretty big loophole for public schools. Then the court continued, “Nor does our decision address any question of state law or address any issues that might be raised by the parents at state court.
Nor, as we stated unequivocally, does our opinion address the propriety of the school allowing the survey to be circulated. Finally, our decision does not affect the rights of parents to influence or change the conduct of school boards through all lawful means generally available to citizens of this nation.”
So Fields v. Palmdale was a bad decision in regards to parents being able to file a federal lawsuit if they believe their rights have been violated. But it left the door open. It said right there, you can do state legislation, you can do state courts (states might have a more broad state law protecting parental rights, which we’re going to talk about. You previewed that a few moments ago, Melvin.)
ADAMS: Yeah.
ESTRADA: School boards, of course, have the means to influence or change the conduct of the schools. Another case was Blau v. Fort Thomas Public School District, it came out of the 6th circuit in 2005. This was a public school dress code case.
And interestingly enough, the dad filed suit on behalf of his daughter, the dad was an attorney, saying, “May daughter wants to be able to wear whatever she wants.” The Fort Thomas Public School District had dress codes. The court overruled the parent, upheld the dress code, and said, “While parents can choose between public and private schools, they do not have a constitutional right to direct how a public school teaches their child.”
And this was a pretty bad decision. Because parents right now are wrestling with that. But the court went on to say, “If you don’t like it, go get involved in school board elections, the school board should be able to make these decisions.”
Wood v. Arnold was the 4th circuit here in Virginia where I live. The 4th circuit is our federal circuit. It came out in 2019. In this case, after the parents lost, they appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court denied it. The Supreme Court can decide whether or not it wants to take the cases and decided not to take this case.
The young woman, Kaylee Wood, was in 11th grade. She was taking a world history course at her public school that was about 10-20 days long. There was a 5-day course entitled, “The Muslim World.”
There were slides comparing Christianity and Islam. And then there was a fill-in-the-blank section that dealt with the Shehada, which is one of the important pillars of Islam where Muslims recite the creed that there is no god but Allah and Mohamed is his prophet.
And so there was this fill-in-the-blank section which said, “There is no god but blank and Mohamed is the blank of Allah.” Kaylee’s dad said, “Don’t fill this out, I don’t want you affirming the Shehada. You’re a Christian, you’re not Muslim.”
Kaylee refused to fill it out. She got a slightly lower percentage on this 5-day Muslim world history unit. But it didn’t affect her overall grade. The parents filed suit. They said, “She’s being forced to affirm a tenant of Islam and this violates our parental rights.”
The 4th circuit denied the lawsuit and, it was really interesting, they said, “Upon our review, we conclude that the challenged coursework materials, viewed in the context of which they were presented” (the court spent a lot of time looking at the context of this world history course).
“Did not violate Woods’ first amendment rights because they did not impermissibly endorse any religion and did not compel Wood to profess any belief.”
And so interestingly enough, when lawyers right now (particularly those at Alliance Defending Freedom and other firms) are representing parents in some of these so-called Critical Race Theory cases where kids are being lined up by race and they’re saying things about their whiteness.
And the lawyers are relying on this case, even though the parents lost in Wood v. Arnold, to say, “Yeah, in these Critical Race Theory situations, students are being compelled to profess a belief.
So in Wood v. Arnold, the circuit went on to say, “School authorities, not courts, are charged with the responsibility of deciding what speech is appropriate in the classroom.” So again, even though the parents lost, the 4th circuit said, “It’s the school’s authority. It’s the school board that’s responsible for making these decisions.”
Another case is CN v. Ridgewood Board of Education. It was a 3rd circuit case that came out in 2005. There was another public school survey. They were asking kids, in this case, 12, 15, and 17 (so middle and high school students) about drug and alcohol use, sexual activity, and suicide.
One question, again this is in 2005, asked, “Have you ever had sexual intercourse, gone all the way, made love?” and the court ruled against the parents. The parents were very frustrated that their kids had received this survey without parental consent. And interestingly enough, Melvin, Sam Alito, who’s on the U.S. Supreme Court, is very conservative—he wrote the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. He ruled for the public school and against the parents. And here’s what the court said, “School defendants in no way indoctrinated the students in any particular outlook on these sensitive topics.
At most, they may have introduced a few topics unknown to certain individuals. We thus conclude that the survey’s interference with parental decision-making authority did not amount to a constitutional violation.”
And so the court said, “This was a survey, it was not enough to be construed as indoctrination. We’re sorry you got this question but it’s not indoctrination. One survey isn’t indoctrination.”
And so, again, some of the lawyers arguing Critical Race Theory, some of the graphic sex-ed in public schools are relying on this decision even though the court ruled against parental rights. They’re saying, “That case, it was a survey, they said it wasn’t indoctrination. But when your entire summer reading list, for example, is all graphic sex-ed or Critical Race Theory books, that is construed as indoctrination.”
The courts are wrestling with that indoctrination and we’re going to have to wait and see. One more case I wanted to talk about is from the 1st circuit in 2008. And this is Parker v. Hurley. And this was because some kids in kindergarten and elementary school were read two books in the classroom.
One was called, Who’s in a family? And it depicted different families, including single-parent families, extended families, interracial families, animal families, a family without children, and then the one that came up in this lawsuit, a family with two dads and a family with two moms.
Then the book concluded by saying, “Who’s in a family? The people who love you the most.” the parents were concerned that this was trying to indoctrinate about gay marriage against their religious beliefs.
And then the other book was a book that was read aloud to second-grade students, some of our listeners may be familiar with it. It was called King and King. It’s about two princes who get married. There at the end, they’re getting married and they’re leaning in to kiss and there’s a heart over it so you don’t actually see their lips touching.
The second grader, Joey in this case who told his parents about the book. The parents described him as agitated and remember him calling the book, “So silly.”
And both sets of parents, the who’s with What’s in a Family? And King and King wanted to have their kids exempted from any future readings regarding gay marriage, gay families…
Remember, this is 2005. This is before the Obergefell Decision before the U.S. Supreme Court found that there was a constitutional right to gay marriage. So way back in the day… where things are today, the school refused to exempt these kindergartners and elementary school kids from these books.
And what the first circuit said in Parker v. Hurley, is, “Public schools are not obliged to shield individual students from which are potentially religiously offensive. Particularly when the school does not require that the student agree with or affirm those ideas.
“Or even participate in discussions about them. The reading by a teacher of one book, or even three, and even if to a young and impressionable child does not constitute indoctrination.
“We do not suggest that the schools choice of books for young students has not deeply offended the plaintiff’s sincerely held religious beliefs If the school system has been insufficiently sensitive to such religious beliefs, the plaintiffs may seek recourse to the normal political processes for change in the town and state.
They are not, however, entitled to an official judicial remedy under the U.S. Constitution.” And so in this final case we just looked at Parker v. Hurley, the court said, “Just reading a book is not indoctrination. And if you don't like it you can go and do the normal political processes at the town and state school board, and the state legislature.
And so even though this was a bad decision for parental rights in the public school classroom, lawyers today are relying on it, saying, “Alright, that was the reading of a book, now it’s just so much in the fabric of the curriculum, that’s indoctrination.”
So one final thing. You mentioned the state legislation. Fifteen states have now adopted the Fundamental Parental Rights Bill. Some of them, in 2021, Florida for example, enacted a Parents' Bill of Rights. This past year, Georgia enacted a Parents Bill of Rights which says that parental rights are fundamental.
And then they go beyond that and say, “And as such, parents in the public school classroom have the right to review the curriculum, the right to be involved in their children’s education.
Our organization has led the way on this, we’ve been baking these parents’ bills of rights. We’ve been backing fundamental parental rights statutes. And in states that have these fundamental rights statutes, and even better parents’ bills of rights, parents are doing what these circuit courts have said. They’re going to the state legislature, they’re getting greater protections for parental rights in the public school classroom with the passage of these laws.
ADAMS: Wow. Well, you have given us a lot to digest. And I appreciate that, Will. I’m sure our audience will as well. You shared different angles and that whole historical development. Let’s talk a little bit now about takeaways.
So I want to say that I think one of the things for sure that we heard in the takeaways, particularly from the lower courts and the district courts decisions where they ruled against the parent and defended the school.
However, there was always that focus, “If you’re not happy, this is not where you fix the problem. You fix the problem at the state and local school board levels. And I think that is a significant takeaway that we should really emphasize here.
Because at the end of the day, if parents will be involved in their state issues in state legislation working with their legislators to get parental rights focuses developed, and also working with their local school boards making sure the boards are hearing them and responding to them.
And if they aren’t, look, it’s a process. And in most cases, school boards are elected (not all) but where they are elected, that’s where parents can organize and they can replace board members who are not, in their minds, meeting the criteria that parents would expect out of their schools.
ESTRADA: Melvin, there was once a time in our nation when school board races were considered the most important elections in the country. And I don’t know when exactly that changed but I think if you were to talk to most people, they’d say, “Oh, the presidential elections are the most important.” Presidential elections get the most turnout. But because of the brilliance of our founders, of our federalist system of local control and state control, and then the federal government.
The news wants you to think that the president is the most powerful. But when it comes to the raising of our children, when it comes to parental rights, it’s the local school boards.
It’s our town councils, it’s our county government. It’s our state legislatures. They have far more authority than even the U.S. Department of education. And we need to get back, Melvin, to where the school board races are the most important races in our country. Especially if your children are in public school.
My wife and I live in Loudoun county, we homeschool our children. Homeschooling has been working great for our children. I’m a homeschool graduate myself. But not everyone homeschools. Every child is different.
Some children may do better in public or private schools. And I truly do feel that the school board races are the most important ones. So, what’s the takeaway? Parents, find out who’s running for the school board. Maybe consider running for school board yourself. It’s a lot of work.
Maybe grandparents should run for school board. Maybe your children have aged out of the system but you can make a difference. And get involved. Go to those school board meetings. Share your views with your school board.
One of our initiatives we’re doing at Parental Rights Foundation (and I really have to give a lot of credit to Moms for Liberty. A lot of our listeners are familiar with Moms for Liberty) but they championed a parental rights resolution, at Bedford county school board, in Virginia. It’s a rural school district. They just adopted the parental rights resolution. Interestingly enough, they relied upon Virginia’s parental rights statute.
Our organization, parentalrights.org, and Parental Rights Foundation, worked on this in 2013 to codify in the Virginia commonwealth code that parental rights were a fundamental right. This was signed into law in 2013 by then-governor Bob McDonald. And it sat on the books for almost a decade and no one did anything with it until this past year.
When the governor Youngkin administration came in, they relied on the Virginia Fundamental parental rights statute, it’s codified in Virginia Code annotated section 1-240.1. They relied on it for the masking executive order.
Again, not saying that kids couldn’t be masked or that they should be masked, but that parents should be the ones who make these decisions. Then the Virginia Department of Education just released a model policy concerning instructional materials with sexually explicit content.
Again, they relied on Virginia’s parental rights statute. We’ve been relying on it with some of our work with Fairfax County Public Schools. And then the Bedford County School board when they adopted this parental rights resolution just a couple of months ago, they relied on Virginia’s fundamental parental rights statute.
So we at Parental Rights Foundation are working on a nationwide initiative to have this model parental rights resolution we’ve adopted, we’re working with Moms for Liberty on this, to have school boards adopt a parental rights resolution saying, it’s the power of our school board, saying it’s the Bedford county public schools, the Loudoun County public schools, Fairfax County Public Schools—insert the name of your local school district, that parental rights are fundamental and that we want to partner with parents in the education of children.
And then, 15 states have these fundamental parental rights statutes, I’m going to rattle them off: they’re West Virginia, Kansas, Michigan, Texas, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Virginia, Oklahoma, Idaho, Wyoming, Florida, Montana, and Georgia.
If your state doesn't have a fundamental parental rights statute, we have model language that’s been adopted by the American legislative exchange council, has wide support from many of our allied organizations, and would be put into the code of your state (35 states still need this) that parental rights are fundamental.
And it would give school boards, and local policy-makers more legislative and statutory authority to rest upon. Then they’re saying, “We want to respect parental rights when we’re in the classroom.”
ADAMS: So, Will, I don’t know if you know this or not but I am actually a resident of Bedford County.
ESTRADA: I did not know that! Well, my hat is off to you, Melvin!
ADAMS: I’m really very proud of the parents of our county who took this thing seriously about what was going on in our schools. And went all out and transformed our school board this last year.
And they worked hard, worked the polls, and ran candidates that supported parents’ rights. And as a result, that new board, a solid, conservative-majority board, start passing these resolutions and several other very good things.
I’m very proud of what they’re doing. And I might also add that, as you said, it really is being used as a model now across the country as a resolution. And while a resolution differs from actual law, it still lays out the principles of how the board intends for the system to work.
And that is a lot easier than passing certain laws as well, though maybe it doesn’t have the same teeth. On the other side of that, there are some states like (I want to be careful that I don’t confuse issues here) Virginia which is a “right to work” state. In other words, a person can get a job without forcibly being a member of a union.
And there are many right-to-work-states across the country. And so there is motion, there is energy going into focusing on we are a “parental rights” state. Because what happens when that happens becomes a draw to citizens who are looking for a good place to raise their family or a good place to get a career and good, healthy employment where they can make decisions on their own without manipulation or any other kind of thing.
And so I’m very excited. I mean, look, we’ve got a very long way to go to bring substantial reform and really reclaim education and culture in this country, we all know that. But for those of us who’ve been working in the space for a long time, it’s very exciting some of the things that are going on.
I think people are waking up and realizing that it’s in their interest, it’s in their children’s interest to have some of the changes, some of the reforms, to get involved, to be involved as parents, to stand up for their values and their beliefs, and to push-back.
And so, as we kinda head into summing up here, we’ve been going at it for a while. It’s been very informative and I appreciate it so much, Will. But what would you say, particularly to parents, but let's talk to educators.
I believe that most educators, even in public schools, their heart is for equipping these students for life. And they really care about their kids and they’re not into all of this politically motivated stuff that’s going on. They’d like to see education really get back to equipping kids for life. And so for parents, educators, for legislators who are caught in the decisions of what is really best for their constituents.
What would you say to these folks just by way of encouragement? Positive things that they can do by just practical engagement, practical action attitudes? What can they do to help make things better?
ESTRADA: Melvin, that is just a great question. And it starts with an acknowledgment of what we said at the beginning of who’s going to be making these decisions. Will it be unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, or even elected bureaucrats, will it be the state or will it be their moms and dads who love their kids?
And at the end of the day, it should always be the loving parents. And so anything in our policies that can do that, that can recognize that parents are their children’s first educators and people who raise them, is good.
It is so critically important because it’s a fundamental, worldview question of who’s going to be making these decisions. And so it starts with us individuals: parents, grandparents, people who care about this issue of, like you said in Bedford County, being involved and knowing the issues and getting good men and women elected to positions of government, whether it’s local school boards or mayor or our state legislature or our governor.
And then for policy-makers, it’s acknowledging that it’s not me. It’s not me as an elected official who should be making these decisions. Parents, you know we’re a very pluralistic country and parents are going to make decisions. I may disagree with the decisions a parent makes for their child, but I shouldn’t be the one making that.
And so the government needs to recognize that their role, in all levels of government, should be respecting parental rights. It should be civil society. It should be houses of worship that should be influencing parents toward better parenting… or what I might think is better parenting. Obviously, of course, if it’s abuse or neglect then the government gets involved.
But just because I don’t like a parent’s way of raising their children doesn’t mean that I need to then strip parental rights away. And so it’s almost a humility if you’re an elected official—of recognizing that I’ve got to recognize it, I’ve got to respect parental rights for all parents.
And when you approach it with that then it makes policy-making easier. It makes how you’re empowering parents to best protect their children by getting the government out of the way in most of these instances of child-raising.
ADAMS: Well that’s a great place to wrap this up. Will, thank you so much for sharing with us. Thank you for all the great work you’re doing, and we pray for God’s blessing on you as we work together to help educate folks and to help bring positive changes in our education and a better future for our children and our country. I look forward to continued work with you.
ESTRADA: It’s an honor, Melvin. Thank you for having me on!