WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has previously stated that she is unable to define what a “woman” is, acted dismissively this week toward parents of public school students who oppose their children being exposed to extreme LGBTQ indoctrination at school, asserting that they can send them “elsewhere.”
In the case before the court known as Mahmoud v. Taylor, a coalition of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish parents sued the Montgomery County, Maryland, Board of Education after the board took away parental notice and opt-outs for books that celebrate “gender transitioning,” “pride” parades, and transgender pronouns with children as young as three and four.
During oral arguments on Tuesday, Justice Jackson appeared completely unable to empathize with middle class and poor families who are financially unable to either homeschool or send their children to private school.
Judging by her statements in the courtroom, Jackson thinks the problem is the parents who object to mandatory homosexual and transgender ideological indoctrination of small children, not the school system brazenly requiring it.
“The parent can choose to put their kid elsewhere,” Jackson said. “You don’t have to send your kid to public school … I’m struggling to see how it burdens a parent’s religious exercise if the school teaches something that the parent disagrees with.”
“You have a choice!” Jackson exclaimed in a mocking tone. “You can homeschool them.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson says if your public school’s curriculum violates your religious beliefs, then you can just pay for them to go to a private school.
“You have a choice! You can homeschool them.”
Easy for her to say.
She sent her kids to a private school. pic.twitter.com/qhM7AES7qC
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) April 23, 2025
Jackson’s infelicitous comments were greeted with a major backlash on broadcast and social media.
“So your ‘choice’ is have your 3-year-old sit through trans story hour without question, OR pay for expensive private school/shift to home-schooling,” commentator Matt Whitlock noted on X. “Not an actual ‘choice’ for a lot of working families.”
“And your tax dollars will fund the woke schools whether your kids go there or not,” Whitlock pointed out.
“Do you think she would see ‘the burden’ if we used her tax dollars to indoctrinate kids toward conservatism?” wondered Nick Freitas, a conservative member of Virginia’s House of Delegates.
Speaking of Jackson’s musings, Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt said, “That’s got to be one of the worst things I’ve ever heard from the Supreme Court.”
“Makes me wonder how she’s even on the Supreme Court,” he added.
“It’s a very ‘Let them eat cake’ commentary coming from her, especially when her children went to private school,” explained Rosalind Hanson, a Montgomery County parent and a member of Moms for Liberty, during the same Newsmax discussion.
“I find that very flippant and very smug,” Hanson said.
In a tongue-in-cheek comment, longtime school choice advocate Corey A. DeAngelis suggested, “Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson accidentally endorses school choice as a way to solve disagreements about public school curriculum.”
‘Not education; indoctrination’
“This is not education, this is indoctrination,” said Billy Moges, a Montgomery County parent who serves as director of Kids First, in a Fox News interview immediately after Tuesday’s Supreme Court hearing.
“No parent with common sense will allow their 3-year-old to learn about sexual behaviors, to learn about sexual body parts,” Moges said.
“This is wicked,” she said. “This is an attack on children and the family.”
“The School Board is pushing inappropriate gender theory on children and running roughshod over parental rights,” said Grace Morrison, a member of Kids First’s board.
The new “inclusivity” books at the heart of the lawsuit were announced in 2022 for students in pre-K through fifth grade and faced backlash for championing controversial ideology around gender and sexuality.
According to the original complaint, the Montgomery County Public School system “claims authority to introduce pre-K and elementary school kids to certain books (the ‘Pride Storybooks’) that promote one-sided transgender ideology, encourage gender transitioning, and focus excessively on romantic infatuation – with no parental notification or opportunity to opt out.”
“One book invites three- and four-year-olds to look for images of things they might find at a pride parade, including an ‘intersex (flag),’ a ‘(drag) king’ and ‘(drag) queen,’ ‘leather,’ ‘underwear,’ and an image of a celebrated LGBTQ activist and sex worker, ‘Marsha P. Johnson,’” the legal filing noted.
Teachers were also instructed to say doctors only “guess” when identifying a newborn’s sex.
The school board revoked notice and opt-outs for these storybooks, which violates Maryland law, the board’s policies, and the advice of its own elementary school principals.
