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Less than two weeks ago, a California appeals court declared in In Re Rachel L. that the vast majority of parents in California may only choose between public and private school because they are unqualified to teach their children. Tens of thousands of children in California are currently homeschooled, but this fact was unconvincing for these three judges, who boldly proclaimed that “parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children,” unless they are certified by the state to teach.

In so ruling, the court declined to follow the Supreme Court’s 1972 decision in Wisconsin v. Yoder and its 2000 ruling in Troxel v. Granville, relying instead upon two antiquated lower-court decisions. The California court refused to recognize parental rights as fundamental rights (even though the Supreme Court did in Troxel), opting instead for the more lenient, pro-government standard of “reasonableness.” According to the court, homeschooling could not be a legitimate educational option because it would place “an unreasonable burden on the state to have to supervise each and every home in which a child was being educated.”

How do you like that? Read the rest of this entry »

That is what a California court recently said. Regrettably the Supreme Court of the United States might agree with that view. If the fundamental parental right was enumerated in the Constitution through a Parental Rights Amendment, we would not have rulings like this California case.

Sign the petition today and get your friends involved. We can’t wait until it is too late.

Here is more analysis on the issue and the current court. Bottom line, if Roberts and Alito agree with Scalia’s view than there is no longer a parental rights majority on the court.

In the 2000 case of Troxel v. Granville, the Supreme Court declared that the right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is a fundamental right, supported by a rich heritage in American law. On its face, this decision is a victory for parental rights, but it also contains some sobering warnings about the future of parental rights in America. Read the rest of this entry »

Chairman’s Address delivered by Michael P. Farris, Home School Legal Defense Association National Conference for Christian Homeschool Leaders, Nashville, Tennessee, September 28, 2006

Tonight I want to talk to you about the most important thing that HSLDA or any of us will ever be involved in in the political, legal sense. And that’s something I talked to you about — those of you who were at the Summit this spring — I talked to you about a potential amendment to the Constitution of the United States on parental rights.¹ And I want to go into that again in a little more depth tonight and update you with information that I was handed at about six forty-five tonight by Scott Somerville — a decision of the European Court of Human Rights that I’m going to talk about here in just a few minutes.

But ladies and gentlemen, I want us to understand what we’re in is in the battle of our lifetimes. You saw me saying on this screen² — and boy, did I need makeup. I looked old and red and bloodshot and ugh. But in any event, maybe I am old and red and bloodshot. I have to recognize that. I found out last night also that the ninth grandchild’s on the way . . . so we’re taking over America one grandchild at a time.

But this issue is not a small issue. It’s the biggest fight we’ve ever been in in our lives. And I want you to just kind of sit back and breathe for a minute and rise up out of the day-to-day. In homeschooling, there’s a day-to-day of homeschooling your own kids, and you’ve all seen that in your own lives, where you homeschool for 10 or 15 years, and then a child graduates, and then you get a little distance, and your child goes off and comes back, and you get to see it from a distance. And when you see it from a distance, you see how important those years invested in homeschooling were. But you didn’t see it that much day-to-day-day-to-day is a lot different than that long-range view.

In running homeschool organizations, there’s a day-to-day as well. And sometimes getting immersed in the day-to-day, you won’t see the long-range; we won’t see the perspective that we need to see by rising up above it and getting out of the details, and getting up at a higher percentage.

What I’m going to suggest to you tonight, and the case I’m going to try to build to you tonight, is that there’s a tsunami coming. The earthquake’s already happened and the wave is headed toward the United States. Now, there’s still time to build the tsunami wall. But the question is, are we going to get up high enough so that we see the tsunami and we build the wall?

That’s the issue, and let’s see what I can do in making this case to you tonight. Read the rest of this entry »

From the July/August 2006 Court Report Cover Story

By Michael P. Farris

I litigated the case that history may judge to be a turning point in parents’ rights. Mozert v. Hawkins County Public Schools (1987) was touted by the media as the “Scopes II” trial. Not only was Mozert tried in Tennessee, but it involved evolution, religion, and a cloud of media onlookers. Attorney Timothy Dyk, now a federal judge appointed by Bill Clinton, was hired by People for the American Way to defend the school district. Beverly LaHaye’s Concerned Women for America employed me as their general counsel to represent the parents whose children had been expelled from the Hawkins County Public Schools.

Why were these children expelled? They refused to read a series of reading books that violated their religious beliefs.

The purpose of the lawsuit was to seek to restore the right of these students to attend public school and be given an alternative reading assignment.

The central issue in the case was: Do parents and children who have sincere religious objections to public school curriculum have the right to alternative instruction for the objectionable material?

The answer given by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals was clear: Parents have no such right. Once a child has been submitted to the public schools for his education, parents lose all ability to control the course of instruction. Read the rest of this entry »

From the March/April 2006 Court Report Cover Story

Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong — these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history. — Winston Churchill, speech, House of Commons, May 2, 1935.i

There were early warning signs that homosexual “marriage” should be taken seriously. On May 27, 1993, the Supreme Court of Hawaii ruled that it was unconstitutional to deny marriage licenses to three same-sex couples. A voter initiative eventually trumped this decision, but at least by this date the battle was fully engaged.

Yet, the responses of the pro-family community, judged with the aid of 20/20 hindsight, have to be regarded as too little, too late. Homosexual marriages are now being performed in this nation. And while there have been a number of successful efforts to place traditional marriage language into state constitutions, efforts to bring in a federal constitutional amendment are essentially stalled. Even more troubling is the fact that the momentum in the legal system is moving rapidly in the direction of declaring homosexual marriage a federal constitutional right. If this happens, all state constitutional efforts will be for naught.

A friend in Congress recently told me that if the issue had been brought to the floor of the House 15–20 years ago, there is no doubt that a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage would have passed. There is substantial doubt that such an amendment will ever pass at this point.

The pro-family movement waited until Congress believed there was a real problem before attempting a constitutional solution, even though legal experts have been united for nearly a decade in saying that the only way to stop the courts’ march toward homosexual marriage is with a federal constitutional amendment. By now, our opponents have gained so much strength in both law and culture that the prospects for the right solution are daunting at best.

This article is about the need to save parental rights. I use the story of the battle to save marriage solely as a cautionary tale. The threats to parental rights are real and growing. And we must face the fact that the right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is not explicitly written in the text of the Constitution. If we wish to preserve this right, it is my contention that now is the time to put parents’ rights into black and white—that is, to adopt an explicit constitutional amendment.

If we wait until the threat fully matures, we will have waited too long. Read the rest of this entry »