During the oral argument for 'Mahmoud v. Taylor', Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts questioned an attorney about the ability of students to have agency in the classroom at different ages.
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00:00Counselor, you said that nothing in the policy requires students to affirm what's being taught or what's being presented in the books.
00:08Is that a realistic concept when you're talking about a five-year-old?
00:12I mean, do you want to say you don't have to follow the teacher's instructions, you don't have to agree with the teacher?
00:18I mean, that may be a more dangerous message than some of the other things.
00:23Well, there are express directives in the support materials that Montgomery County provided along exactly those lines.
00:31But, Your Honor, I would point the court to Barnett, where the kids were young, they were 8 and 10,
00:35and the court made a distinction between being required to pledge allegiance and affirm a belief in a graven image in that case,
00:42and merely being required to remain passive during the pledge ceremony and being instructed on what the pledge was, what the flag was, and what it meant.
00:49Well, that's a particular ceremony, which I think I would sort of put aside when we're talking about the basic instruction here.
00:56You know, read this, or this is what it shows on an issue that presents serious religious objections for the parent.
01:05So, I mean, I understand the idea when you're talking about a sophomore, junior, whatever, in high school,
01:11where the point is you want to sort of push back on some of this.
01:15But I'm not sure that same qualifying factor applies when you're talking about five-year-olds.
01:25Well, so if that's relevant to the question, Your Honor,
01:27then I think that the line that we advocate between exposure and coercion is the relevant one.
01:32And there may be circumstances where, given the age of the student,
01:35or given the particular presentation of information in the classroom,
01:38a plaintiff may be able to make out a case that their child is being coerced.
01:42But the court, I think, has to accept what Montgomery County sort of represents as the basis for the presentation of this curriculum.
01:50And what's in the record are directives to say, for example,
01:52I understand that is what you believe, but not everyone believes it.
01:55In any community, we'll always find people with beliefs different from our own, and that's okay.
02:00We can still show them respect.
02:02That's exactly...
02:02Counselor.