No Home Rule
The War Against Parents by Schools & States
States and school districts throughout the United States are implementing laws and guidelines that undermine parents’ right to information about their children. Parents have a constitutional right to make judgments about the upbringing of their children, including in the sphere of education. But can they make those judgments if states and schools prohibit parents from learning information vital to their children’s wellbeing? In particular, many states are allowing schools to keep parents from learning about their children’s gender-identity problems and the counseling they are receiving in that regard.
A century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that parents have a constitutional right to choose how to bring up their children and that this right is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment (Meyer v. Nebraska, 1923). The Fourteenth Amendment states, “No State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of the law.” The Court in Meyer established that “without a doubt, [liberty] denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to . . . marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.”
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Nicole Marques holds a Juris Doctor degree from Northeastern University School of Law and focuses on legal writing and research. She lives in Florida.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
22.8—November/December 2009
Looking for Beauty & Justice 150 Years After Darwin’s Classic by Charles Taliaferro
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
