Book battles come to the Supreme Court: Mahmoud v. Taylor is before the Court this week, dealing with the Montgomery County Board of Education, which took away both parental notice and opt-outs for storybooks that celebrate transgenderism and pride parades, read to children as young as three and four. The plaintiffs are a coalition of religious parents from all different faith traditions, asking the Court to rule on “whether parents’ rights to the free exercise of their faiths are burdened if public schools do not allow them to withdraw their children from classes on days” these themes are discussed, per a New York Times writeup. Oral arguments are happening now, and a decision is expected in June.
At issue are the books Pride Puppy, an alphabet book about a puppy that gets lost at a Pride parade (at which there are drag queens and leather); Love, Violet, about a girl who crushes on her female classmate; Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, which is self-explanatory; Born Ready, about a transgender child; Prince & Knight, a “modern fairy tale” about two boys falling in love and getting married after working together to battle a dragon; Intersection Allies which asks kids which pronouns fit them; and What Are Your Words? which tells kids that pronouns can “change like the weather.” (The school district has since removed two of the books from the curriculum, though they remain in school libraries.)
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The lead plaintiffs are a Muslim couple—Tamer Mahmoud and Enas Barakat—who have a son in elementary school in Montgomery County. Other plaintiffs are Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox.
It’s not just that these books are stocked in school libraries: In 2022, the school district added them to the language arts curriculum for students in pre-K through fifth grade. “At first, the Montgomery school system gave parents notice when the storybooks were to be discussed, along with the opportunity to have their children excused from those sessions,” reports the Times. “But the school system soon eliminated the advanced notice and opt-out policy, saying it was hard to administer, led to absenteeism and risked ‘exposing students who believe the storybooks represent them and their families to social stigma and isolation.'” Several justices, even the liberal ones, expressed surprise at the themes and images depicted.
The lawyer for Montgomery county is hampered by the fact that many of the justices have read the books in question.
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) April 22, 2025
“The Supreme Court will determine whether the school board policy burdens religious rights,” reports NBC News. “The justices could then determine whether that burden violates the Constitution, or they could send the case back to lower courts to make that determination.”
Some of these books, like Born Ready, are teaching kids things that…are decidedly false (even if you agree with the transgenderism stuff):
So where does this surprising assertion come from? It’s based on a moment in the book “A Boy Called Penelope”, in which a trans child’s Ghanaian grandfather accepts his gender identity, and tells him that in Twi they don’t even use gendered pronouns.
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) April 23, 2025
“Surprisingly to speakers of English and other Indo-European languages, gendering pronouns isn’t actually all that common; most languages don’t do it,” posted Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle on X. “But the idea that this somehow means sex/gender isn’t a ‘big deal’ in these cultures is Sapir-Whorfism run amok.” Children might be walking away from these lessons thinking, for example, that Ghana is some promised land for gay rights, which is decidedly not the case.
Pride Puppy, meanwhile, has a section that asks pre-schoolers (the intended audience!) to search for images from a word list that includes “intersex flag,” “drag queen,” “underwear,” and “leather.” (That book has since been removed from the curriculum.)
“Despite faith differences, these parents believe the storybooks are age-inappropriate, spiritually and emotionally damaging for their children, and inconsistent with their religious beliefs,” notes the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty (which is representing the plaintiffs) in a press release about the case.
Listen to some audio from oral arguments.
Too many parents objected to what we were teaching their kids, so we withdrew their ability to object
Oh okpic.twitter.com/lBRTyYeIM4
— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) April 22, 2025
“It’s not just exposure to the idea, right?” Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked. “It’s saying this is the right view of the world. This is how we think about things. This is how you should think about things. This is like 2 plus 2 is 4.”
“If the school teaches something that the parent disagrees with, you have a choice. You don’t have to send your kid to that school,” said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Several of the plaintiffs have withdrawn their children from the school system as a result of this, opting for private schools and homeschooling.)
It’s not clear to me why Montgomery County schoolteachers and administrators would be so threatened by parents retaining their opt-out ability—unless it is, of course, about indoctrination into a particular set of ideas. Some teachers have claimed that the sheer number of opt-outs makes classroom management hard, to which my response would be: Interesting market signals you’ve got there! Maybe, just maybe, if the lessons are so broadly unpopular, they should be scrapped. (If I were put in this position—and I assume New York City will at some point spring this type of thing on me—homeschooling would be my move, personally.)
For an opposing (and admittedly more informed on constitutional law) view, Eugene Volokh and Yale Law’s Justin Driver submitted an amicus brief supporting the school system. You can read it here.
Done with CECOT: Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been moved to a lower security facility in Santa Ana, El Salvador, according to Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D–Md.), who visited him last week and has publicly exerted pressure on the Trump administration to ensure Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. is facilitated, in compliance with the Supreme Court’s order. “The U.S. State Department said in an update to the federal district court in Maryland that Abrego Garcia was moved to the facility eight days before Van Hollen met with him in El Salvador last week,” per a CBS News report. Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia’s wife and kids have moved to a safe house, after the Department of Homeland Security posted a domestic violence protection order from 2021 that featured her address to X.
“I don’t feel safe when the government posts my address, the house where my family lives, for everyone to see, especially when this case has gone viral and people have all sorts of opinions,” Jennifer Vasquez Sura told The Washington Post. “So, this is definitely a bit terrifying. I’m scared for my kids.”
“I just want my husband back, my best friend back, my kids’ father back. I want our life back,” she added.
Scenes from New York: “Cornell University dropped a popular R&B singer from its annual campus concert over what the school’s president said were antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiments she had espoused,” reports The New York Times. “The singer, Kehlani, has been an outspoken opponent of Israel’s war in Gaza, speaking out at concerts and on social media. In a 2024 music video for the song ‘Next 2 U,’ Kehlani danced in a jacket adorned with kaffiyehs as dancers waved Palestinian flags in the background. During the video’s introduction, the phrase ‘Long Live the Intifada’ appeared against a dark background.”
This cowardly capitulation seems likely to be related to the Trump administration’s investigations of antisemitism on university campuses, as well as the freezing, earlier this month of $1 billion worth of federal funds meant for Cornell (endowment: $10.7 billion).
QUICK HITS
- On Tuesday, President Donald Trump began to walk back some of his comments about imposing a 145 percent tariff on Chinese goods, reports Bloomberg, mentioning he’d be willing to “substantially” reduce his tariffs on China. “We’re going to have a fair deal with China,” Trump told reporters yesterday. After those comments, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that “there will be no unilateral reduction in tariffs against China. The president has made it clear China needs to make a deal with United States of America, and we are optimistic that will happen.” In other words, the administration itself doesn’t seem to know which policy it’s sticking with.
- First-term approval of Trump’s handling of immigration policy vs. second-term approval so far:
New YouGov/Economist poll out this morning finds Trump is no longer popular on immigration. This was the last issue he had a positive net approval on.
This was very easy to see coming, esp bc individual components of immigration policy are so toxic: https://t.co/JoomDfQBi5 pic.twitter.com/xk42iO9ZLa
— G Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) April 23, 2025
- Crucial distinctions between the normal deportation process and deportations under the Alien Enemies Act from today’s Just Asking Questions guest:
Trump isn’t using the ordinary deportation laws that Obama used to deport millions.
He’s declared a *war* and is using war time powers to accuse people of gang membership to imprison them for life. That’s when due process is needed: to test if those accusations are valid. pic.twitter.com/lou2rx45Mh
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 23, 2025
- I think this is not aspirational, actually, and would be a sign we’re further creeping toward authoritarianism:
I am sort of open to the idea that we should be a country with a national ID card system and a rule that you’re expected to have your papers on you at all times in case your citizenship is challenged.
But if that’s what conservatives want, we need to create the card. https://t.co/hF7Af5Oozx
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) April 23, 2025
- How do Chinese propagandists capitalize on domestic turmoil? This and more are covered in the latest Just Asking Questions with Michael Beckley:
- “Of course you know I think it’s good for the administration to consider pro-natalist ideas,” writes Ross Douthat on X, linking to a New York Times piece about new family policies being considered, “but right now nothing would be more pro-natalist than avoiding an unnecessary recession.” (We’ll ask Douthat about this and more when he comes on the show next week.)
