Q&A: Education in Rhode Island After Mahmoud v. Taylor

In Mahmoud v. Taylor, parents representing a variety of faith backgrounds sued a Maryland school district after it ceased accommodating their requests to opt their elementary school children out of class when five storybooks that taught literacy skills and included LGBTQ+ characters were used as part of classroom instruction. The suit was filed after the school district had rescinded its opt-out policy because opt-out requests had become unmanageable. The parents alleged that rescinding their opportunity to opt-out their children from those classes violated their constitutional rights to free exercise of religion.

In June 2025, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in favor of the parents, requiring the school district to provide them with advance notice of, and the option to excuse their children from, any classroom instruction in which the challenged storybooks would be used. The Court held that the parents were likely to succeed on their claims that denial of an opportunity to opt out impermissibly burdened their right to religious exercise. The Court further explained that where school instruction “substantially interferes with the religious development” of the parents’ children, the challenged policy is unconstitutional unless school officials can show that it serves a “compelling” government interest and is “narrowly tailored” to achieve that goal.

The Court did not create a clear, bright-line rule for how the free exercise rights of parents applies to public school instruction, but instead held that the question of whether instruction “substantially interferes” with the religious development of a child “will depend on the specific religious beliefs and practices asserted, as well as the specific nature of the educational requirement or curricular feature at issue.”

Moreover, as noted below, the Court seemed strongly influenced by the young age of the students, a factor that appears to limit the breadth of the ruling. As a result of the nebulousness of the Court’s decision, we suggest schools confer with counsel in deciding how to handle any specific issues that arise related to elementary school instruction opt-outs.