In June 2025, the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 in Mahmoud v. Taylor that Montgomery County, Maryland's public schools violated parents' religious rights by refusing to let them opt their children out of instruction using LGBTQ-themed storybooks. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said the right of parents "to direct the religious upbringing of their children would be an empty promise if it did not follow those children into the public school classroom."
The ruling requires public schools to allow opt-outs for any instructional content that conflicts with a parent's sincerely held religious beliefs, not just material about gender or sexuality, and schools must provide a clear process without penalizing students who opt out. Districts are still working through what that looks like in practice, so it is worth parents checking their own school's opt-out policy directly rather than assuming it matches the ruling yet.