Opinion ID: 3034627
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Meyer-Pierce

Text: We note at the outset that it is not our role to rule on the wisdom of the School District’s actions. That is a matter that must be decided in other fora. The question before us is simply whether the parents have a constitutional right to exclusive control over the introduction and flow of sexual information to their children. It is clear, and the parents agree, that no court has ever held that parents have a specific fundamental right “to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal and religious values and beliefs.” In fact, 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. See Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720-21 (1997). Thus, whether the parents have a constitutional right to exclusive control over the introduction and flow of sexual information to their children depends entirely upon whether the asserted right is encompassed within some broader constitutional right. [1] The parents next argue that the right they seek to invoke is encompassed within the fundamental due process right to “control the education and upbringing of one’s children.” The Supreme Court has held that the right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children is a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. See Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 66 (2000) (plurality opinion) (“[I]t cannot now be doubted that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment proFIELDS v. PALMDALE SCHOOL DIST. 15071 tects the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”). This right is commonly referred to as the Meyer-Pierce right because it finds its origin in two Supreme Court cases, Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923), and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925). [2] As with all constitutional rights, the right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children is not without limitations. In Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944), the Court recognized that parents’ liberty interest in the custody, care, and nurture of their children resides “first” in the parents, but does not reside there exclusively, nor is it “beyond regulation [by the state] in the public interest.” Id. at 166. For example, the state “as parens patriae” may restrict parents’ interest in the custody, care, and nurture of their children “by requiring school attendance, regulating or prohibiting the child’s labor and in many other ways.” Id. (footnotes omitted). See also Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U.S. 160, 177 (1976) (holding that there is no parental right to educate children in private segregated schools); Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U.S. 455, 461-62 (1973) (discussing the limited scope of Pierce); Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 239 (1972) (White, J., concurring) (stating that the Pierce right “lends no support to the contention that parents may replace state educational requirements with their own idiosyncratic views of what knowledge a child needs to be a productive and happy member of society”); Pierce, 268 U.S. at 534 (“No question is raised concerning the power of the state reasonably to regulate all schools, to inspect, supervise and examine them, their teachers and pupils; to require that all children of proper age attend some school, that teachers shall be of good moral character and patriotic disposition, that certain studies plainly essential to good citizenship must be taught, and that nothing be taught which is manifestly inimical to the public welfare.”); Hooks v. Clark County Sch. Dist., 228 F.3d 1036, 1042 (9th Cir. 2000) (subjecting the Meyer15072 FIELDS v. PALMDALE SCHOOL DIST. Pierce right to reasonable regulation by the state), cert. denied, 532 U.S. 971 (2001). Likewise, lower courts have recognized the constitutionality of a wide variety of state actions that intrude upon the liberty interest of parents in controlling the upbringing and education of their children. See Littlefield v. Forney Indep. Sch. Dist., 268 F.3d 275 (5th Cir. 2001) (upholding school district’s mandatory school uniform policy); Hooks, 228 F.3d at 1036 (upholding state statute denying speech therapy services to home-schooled children); Hutchins v. District of Columbia, 188 F.3d 531 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (plurality opinion) (upholding a municipality’s curfew ordinance that was only applicable to minors); Swanson v. Guthrie Indep. Sch. Dist. No. 1-L, 135 F.3d 694 (10th Cir. 1998) (upholding school district’s full-time attendance policy); Herndon v. Chapel HillCarrboro City Bd. of Educ., 89 F.3d 174 (4th Cir. 1996) (upholding school district’s mandatory community service program). Finally, there are a number of cases that have upheld the constitutionality of school programs that educate children in sexuality and health. See, e.g., Leebaert v. Harrington, 332 F.3d 134 (2d Cir. 2003) (upholding school district’s mandatory health classes against a father’s claim of a violation of his fundamental rights); Parents United for Better Sch., Inc. v. School Dist. of Philadelphia Bd. of Educ., 148 F.3d 260 (3d Cir. 1998) (upholding school district’s consensual condom distribution program); Brown v. Hot, Sexy & Safer Prods., Inc., 68 F.3d 525 (1st Cir. 1995) (upholding compulsory high school sex education assembly program); Citizens for Parental Rights v. San Mateo County Bd. of Educ., 51 Cal. App. 3d 1 (1975) (upholding school district’s non-compulsory health and sex education program against parental challenge). [3] Of particular import to this case is Brown, in which a compulsory high school assembly presentation aimed at educating students on AIDS and other health concerns included FIELDS v. PALMDALE SCHOOL DIST. 15073 explicit references to sexuality. See 68 F.3d at 529. The Brown plaintiffs alleged that the compelled attendance of schoolchildren at the assembly deprived the minors and their parents of their privacy rights, substantive due process rights, and their right to an educational environment free from sexual harassment. Rejecting those claims, the First Circuit explained that, [t]he Meyer and Pierce cases, we think, evince the principle that the state cannot prevent parents from choosing a specific educational program — whether it be religious instruction at a private school or instruction in a foreign language. That is, the state does not have the power to “standardize its children” or “foster a homogenous people” by completely foreclosing the opportunity of individuals and groups to choose a different path of education. We do not think, however, that this freedom encompasses a fundamental constitutional right to dictate the curriculum at the public school to which they have chosen to send their children. We think it is fundamentally different for the state to say to a parent, “You can’t teach your child German or send him to a parochial school,” than for the parent to say to the state, “You can’t teach my child subjects that are morally offensive to me.” The first instance involves the state proscribing parents from educating their children, while the second involves parents prescribing what the state shall teach their children. 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 dis- agreements 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 as described by Meyer and Pierce do not encompass a 15074 FIELDS v. PALMDALE SCHOOL DIST. broad-based right to restrict the flow of information in the public schools. Id. at 533-34 (citations omitted) (emphasis added). We agree with and adopt the First Circuit’s analysis. Meyer, Pierce, and their progeny “evince the principle that the state cannot prevent parents from choosing a specific educational program,” but they do not afford parents a right to compel public schools to follow their own idiosyncratic views as to what information the schools may dispense. Parents have a right to inform their children when and as they wish on the subject of sex; they have no constitutional right, however, to prevent a public school from providing its students with whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise, when and as the school determines that it is appropriate to do so. Neither Meyer nor Pierce provides support for the view that parents have a right to prevent a school from providing any kind of information — sexual or otherwise — to its students. As the Brown court said, “Meyer and Pierce do not encompass [the] broad-based right [the parent-plaintiffs seek] to restrict the flow of information in the public schools.” Id. at 534. Although the parents are legitimately concerned with the subject of sexuality, there is no constitutional reason to distinguish that concern from any of the countless moral, religious, or philosophical objections that parents might have to other decisions of the School District — whether those objections regard information concerning guns, violence, the military, gay marriage, racial equality, slavery, the dissection of animals, or the teaching of scientifically-validated theories of the origins of life. 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. As the First Circuit made clear in Brown, once parents make the choice as to which school their children will attend, FIELDS v. PALMDALE SCHOOL DIST. 15075 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. See Yoder, 406 U.S. at 205. Perhaps the Sixth Circuit said it best when it explained, “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.’ ” (citations omitted) (emphasis in original). Blau v. Fort Thomas Pub. Sch. Dist., 401 F.3d 381, 395-96 (6th Cir. 2005). We endorse and adopt the Sixth Circuit’s view.7 The parents argue that the reasoning in Brown should not be followed in this case because the AIDS assembly being challenged in that case was part of the general curriculum, and there is a “curriculum exception” to the Meyer-Pierce right which supported that court’s disposition of that case. The parents cite no case recognizing such a curriculum exception. They simply urge that we create one, and then hold that in all other respects Meyer-Pierce controls all matters relating to education and the educational system. That is not how the courts have analyzed the issue, see, e.g., Blau, and we see no reason to follow a different course. [4] Brown and Blau compel the conclusion that what Meyer-Pierce establishes is the right of parents to be free from state interference with their choice of the educational 7 We offer no comment as to any First Amendment issues that may arise with respect to any of these matters. 15076 FIELDS v. PALMDALE SCHOOL DIST. forum itself, a choice that ordinarily determines the type of education one’s child will receive. The School District’s design and administration of the survey in no way interfered with that right. Indeed, it was only because the parents had selected the school they did that their children were asked the questions to which the parents objected. The state action at issue simply does not fall within the Meyer-Pierce proscription. In sum, we affirm that the Meyer-Pierce right does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door. The parents’ asserted right “to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal and religious values and beliefs,” by which they mean the right to limit what public schools or other state actors may tell their children regarding sexual matters, is not encompassed within the Meyer-Pierce right to control their children’s upbringing and education. Accordingly, Meyer-Pierce provides no basis for finding a substantive due process right that could have been violated by the defendants’ authorization and administration of the survey.