Opinion ID: 259
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Parent's Fourteenth Amendment Right

Text: Parents have a Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process right to raise their children without undue state interference. Gruenke, 225 F.3d at 303. [12] Choices about marriage, family life, and the upbringing of children are among associational rights this Court has ranked as of basic importance in our society, rights sheltered by the Fourteenth Amendment against the State's unwarranted usurpation, disregard, or disrespect. M.L.B. v. S.L.J., 519 U.S. 102, 116, 117 S.Ct. 555, 136 L.Ed.2d 473 (1996) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Indeed, the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children[] is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests, Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 65, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 L.Ed.2d 49 (2000), and is well-established by long-standing Supreme Court precedent. See Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, 401, 43 S.Ct. 625, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923) (recognizing that the Constitution protects the right of parents to bring up children and to control the education of their own); Pierce v. Soc'y of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus & Mary, 268 U.S. 510, 534-35, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925) (acknowledging parents' right to direct the upbringing and education of their children); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166, 64 S.Ct. 438, 88 L.Ed. 645 (1944) (observing the cardinal principle that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents); Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 233, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972) (recognizing parents' right to instill in their children moral standards, religious beliefs, and elements of good citizenship). Here, Jane Doe objects to the education program's lessons in why the minors' actions were wrong, what it means to be a girl in today's society, and non-traditional societal and job roles. Appellees' Br. at 18-19. She particularly opposes these value lessons from a District Attorney who has stated publicly that a teen[]age girl who voluntarily posed for a photo wearing a swimsuit violated Pennsylvania's child pornography statute. Id. at 19. The program's teachings that the minors' actions were morally wrong and created a victim contradict the beliefs she wishes to instill in her daughter. We agree that an individual District Attorney may not coerce parents into permitting him to impose on their children his ideas of morality and gender roles. An essential component of Jane Doe's right to raise her daughterthe responsibility to inculcate moral standards, religious beliefs, and elements of good citizenship, Gruenke, 225 F.3d at 307was interfered with by the District Attorney's actions. While it may have been constitutionally permissible for the District Attorney to offer this education voluntarily (that is, free of consequences for not attending), he was not free to coerce attendance by threatening prosecution. Our case law and Pennsylvania's statutory law recognize that school officials have a `secondary responsibility' in the upbringing of children, and in certain circumstances the parental right to control the upbringing of a child must give way to a school's ability to control curriculum and the school environment. C.N. v. Ridgewood Bd. of Educ., 430 F.3d 159, 182 (3d Cir.2005) ( quoting Gruenke, 225 F.3d at 307); 24 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 13-1317 (Every teacher, vice principal and principal in the public schools shall have the right to exercise the same authority as to conduct and behavior over the pupils attending his school, during the time they are in attendance, including the time required in going to and from their homes, as the parents, guardians or persons in parental relation to such pupils may exercise over them.). We can say with assuredness, however, that the District Attorney is not imbued with that same secondary responsibility. Indeed, we find no support for this proposition in any related statute, regulation, or case. The District Attorney is not a public education official, but a public law enforcement official. We do not express a view on the propriety of this program had it been offered as part of the school curriculum, [13] though we note that Jane Doe has a constitutionally protected right to choose the school her child attends, see Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U.S. 160, 178, 96 S.Ct. 2586, 49 L.Ed.2d 415 (1976), a choice lacking in the current context. We conclude that Jane Doe is likely to succeed in showing that the education program required by the District Attorney impermissibly usurped and violated her fundamental right to raise her child without undue state interference.