Lexington C.A.R.E.S.Superintendent William J. Hurley and Estabrook Principal Joni Jay should be applauded for standing their ground against the parent who thinks he has a right to prevent his children from exposure to books that include any mention of families with same-sex parents. The Constitution provides no such right - and public education would grind to a halt if parents had the right to demand classes tailored to each child based on the parent's moral, religious, or political views.
Massachusetts state law requires only that if a school has a sex education curriculum, it must provide parents with notice and the right to opt their child out of any part of that curriculum. But the children's book in the diversity book bag about the diversity of families is not sex education requiring parental notice.
While parents have a right to control the upbringing of their children, that right does not extend to requiring schools to give prior notice before children can be exposed to all ideas that might possibly be at odds with the parents' values. If a parent chooses to have his child attend the public schools, that child has a right to a broad and high quality public education, not one constrained by individual parental beliefs.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals rejected similar attempts at public schools censorship in 1995, when some parents sued the Chelmsford school district for having exposed their children to an AIDS education assembly on the grounds that it interfered with their religious freedom and rights as parents to control the upbringing of their children.
The First Circuit rejected that claim, holding that "if all parents had a fundamental constitutional right to dictate individually what the schools teach their children, the schools would be forced to cater a curriculum for each student whose parents had genuine moral disagreements with the school's choice of subject matter. We cannot see that the Constitution imposes such a burden on state educational systems, and accordingly find that the rights of parents ... do not encompass a broad-based right to restrict the flow of information in the public schools."
The Constitution, the courts, and sound public policy buttress the decision by Principal Jay and Superintendent Hurley to defend the continued integrity and excellence of the Lexington public schools.
Carol Rose is a Parker Street resident and executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts.