Parents who sued a California school district because students were asked how often they thought about sex lost their attempt to have the Supreme Court overturn the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit:
The parents said they had the sole right "to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex."However, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said parents of public school children have no "fundamental right" to be the exclusive provider of sexual information to their children.
The poll was given to children in the first, third and fifth grades. Do first graders even think about sex?
Okay, the case actually deals with some very serious issues. In rejecting the parents' contention that they have the exclusive right to inform their children about sex, the Ninth Circuit said, "no such specific right can be found in the deep roots of the nation's history and tradition or implied in the concept of ordered liberty."
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Students were asked 79 questions about how often they had certain thoughts, feelings and experiences, such as anger, bad dreams and suicidal impulses. Ten of the questions concerned sexual topics, including how often they thought about sex or whether they were "touching ... private parts too much.''
The School District mailed a letter to parents informing them of the survey's "nature and purpose," and requesting parental consent for student participation. The consent letter did not state that some questions involved sexual topics.
The Ninth Circuit decided it is all about choice:
[Once] parents make the choice as to which school their children will attend, their fundamental right to control the education of their children is, at the least, substantially diminished. The constitution does not vest parents with the authority to interfere with a public school’s decision as to how it will provide information to its students or what information it will provide, in its classrooms or otherwise.[. . .]
While parents may have a fundamental right to decide whether to send their child to a public school, they do not have a fundamental right generally to direct how a public school teaches their child. Whether it is the school curriculum, the hours of the school day, school discipline, the timing and content of examinations, the individuals hired to teach at the school, the extracurricular activities offered at the school or, as here, a dress code, these issues of public education are generally ‘committed to the control of state and local authorities.
[. . .]
Schools cannot be expected to accommodate the personal, moral or religious concerns of every parent. Such an obligation would not only contravene the educational mission of the public schools, but also would be impossible to satisfy.
In the end, the Ninth Circuit concluded parents are entitled to far less control over what information their children are taught than you might think:
We... hold that there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children, either independent of their right to direct the upbringing and education of their children or encompassed by it. We also hold that parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students. Finally, we hold that the defendants’ actions were rationally related to a legitimate state purpose.
The Supreme Court agrees. The case is Fields, et al, v. Palmdale School District.
The Ninth Circuit's entire opinion is available here [pdf].
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