Sen. Banks and Colleagues Defend Homeschool Families’ Right to Choose Religious Curriculum

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Senator Jim Banks (R-Ind.) joined twelve of his colleagues in filing an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to protect homeschooling parents' right to choose faith-based curriculum for their children.

The brief asks the court to reverse a lower-court decision that wrongly stopped parents participating in California's homeschool independent study programs from using religious curriculum. It argues that California violated the First Amendment by allowing families to select nearly any qualifying curriculum while excluding religious options.

Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.): "Parents have a God-given right to direct their children's education. California's attack on religious homeschool families is blatantly unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court should put an end to it."

Key Excerpts from the amicus brief below; the full text can be viewed here:

"As part of California's publicly funded independent-study programs, parents can teach their own children in their own homes with limited oversight from a private, nonprofit, corporation operating a charter school. And subject to general state standards, parents can choose any curriculum they want for their homeschooling-with one exception: religion.That overt discrimination-which Respondents say is required by California's Blaine Amendment-clearly violates the Constitution. And it is preposterous to say, as did the Ninth Circuit, that homeschooling parents are actually state actors.

"This Court has "repeatedly held that a State violates the Free Exercise Clause when it excludes religious observers from otherwise available public benefits" and programs…

"To get around that blatant constitutional violation, the Ninth Circuit deemed the homeschool independent-study programs public. In other words, homeschooling parents are state actors. But that's egregiously wrong. This case presents an easy question: whether parents who teach their own children in their own homes based on curriculum they select speak and act as the government. Both case law and common sense dictate that the answer is no."

U.S. Senator Tedd Budd (R-N.C.), led Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Jim Justice (R-W.Va.), John Kennedy (R-La.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) in filing the amicus brief.

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