The Supreme Court of the United States will hear a case on Tuesday about LGBTQ+ storybooks in Maryland’s largest school district.

The court will determine whether Montgomery County elementary school parents are deprived of the right to freely exercise their religion when they’re not allowed to opt their children out of reading books that they say go against their faith.

Though lawsuit was filed nearly two years ago, the Supreme Court hearing comes as schools face a number of challenges to their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration.

Here’s what we know about the case, Mahmoud v. Taylor:

Who’s involved?

The plaintiffs are Montgomery County Public Schools parents Tamer Mahmoud and Enas Barakat, who are Islamic; Jeff and Svitlana Roman who are Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox, respectively; and Chris and Melissa Persak, who are Roman Catholic. Also on the petitioner list, the parties requesting the Supreme Court to review the case, is the parent-rights group Kids First.

The defendants are Montgomery County Superintendent Thomas Taylor and the county’s school board.

When did the books become an issue?

Books read by Montgomery students haven’t always reflected the county’s diversity, the defense stated in a court document. The school system wanted to change that as part of its commitment to culturally responsive teaching.

So, at the start of the 2022-2023 school year, it incorporated new books in its English curriculum with diverse characters, families and historical figures. That included a handful of storybooks with LGBTQ+ characters, the defense attorneys explained.

Storylines from the books, according to the defense, included a family attending a Pride parade, a prince falling in love with a knight while battling a dragon and a transgender boy sharing his identity with his family.

The books are used for individual reading, classroom read-alouds and other activities that enhance literacy skills. They aren’t used for lessons related to gender and sexuality, the defense stated.

“Nor is any student asked or expected to change his or her views about his or her own, or any other student’s, sexual orientation or gender identity,” a court document said.

But the plaintiffs argued that teachers were told to view it as “hurtful” if a student disagreed with the idea that “not everyone is a boy or girl,” for example. They pointed to a 2022 letter from the principals union expressing concern about whether certain books were age-appropriate.

The school system required teachers to read at least one of the books each school year, according to the plaintiffs.

How did the opt-out policy work?

Some parents, including the plaintiffs, requested that their kids be excused from class when the books were read or discussed. They gave reasons related to religion, their children’s ages, or not wanting their kids to learn about sex and gender identity.

Montgomery schools would notify parents when one of the books that included LGBTQ+ characters was going to be read. The teacher was expected to find a substitute to instruct the opted-out students.

Teachers, at first, tried accommodating the opt-out requests, said the defense, but the requests kept growing. The school system noticed that it was leading to high absenteeism and difficulty finding substitutes for the opted-out students across multiple classrooms. The school system also feared falling out of compliance with discrimination laws and stigmatizing students who related to the books.

In March 2023, court documents state, Montgomery schools announced that starting the next school year, parents could no longer opt out of instruction that involved the books “for any reason.”

After that, over 1,100 parents signed a petition requesting the opt-out option be restored. Board meetings were packed with “hundreds of parents — mostly Muslim and Eastern Orthodox,” who testified that the policy change conflicts with their religious obligations, the plaintiffs wrote. Kids are impressionable, they said, and lack the judgement to process complex issues.

“In response, Board members publicly accused them [the parents testifying] of promoting ‘hate’ and compared them to ‘white supremacists’ and ‘xenophobes,’” asserted the plaintiffs.

Giving parents the option to opt their children out of certain instruction is supported by Maryland law, the plaintiffs argued, on top of the school systems’ own policies.

“If parents did not like what was taught to their elementary school kids, their only choice was to send them to private school or to homeschool,” wrote the plaintiffs.

What did the lower courts decide?

There were no lower courts that agreed with the parents who sued, according to the defense.

In a 2-1 vote, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit disagreed with plaintiffs’ theory that “the lack of an across-the-board notice and an opt-out opportunity relation to the Storybooks, in and of itself, coerces them and their children in the free exercise of their religion,” court documents read.

Parents offered no evidence that the school system pressured their kids to change their religious beliefs, Judge G. Steven Agee of the Fourth Circuit appeals court wrote. Hearing other views doesn’t necessarily mean students are being pressured to act differently from their faith, the judge added.

The plaintiffs assert that some of their arguments have been ignored in past hearings, like their claim that the opt-out ban wasn’t evenly applied, given that opting out of sex education classes was still allowed, and that parents are forced to relinquish control of their kids to the school system whose teachings conflict with their religions.

They also argue that the 1979 case Florey v. Sioux Falls School District determined that forcing people to participate in an activity that offends their religious beliefs will generally violate the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment.

What are others saying?

Multiple organizations have weighed in on the matter. The Christian Legal Society, along with other conservative groups, argued in court filings that parents have a right to let religion dictate how they raise their kids, and that the opt-out policy was not evenly applied.

They suggested that parents who don’t want their kids learning about sex education are more valued than parents who don’t want their kids learning from a curriculum that incorporates LGBTQ+ characters.

Also chiming in was the American Psychology Association, which published one of the books, “Jacob’s Room to Choose,” criticized by the parent plaintiffs.

Research supports the benefits of featuring LGBTQ+ characters in instruction, the group wrote in court filings.

“Exposing all students to stories that include LGBTQ+ characters helps to destigmatize nonheterosexual sexual orientation and nonconforming gender identity, and to decrease bullying and incidents of violence or harm to this population of students,” it stated.

What happens next?

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Tuesday. The nine justices are expected to vote and issue their ruling by the end of June.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.