November 4, 2005—This week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of further restricting parents’ rights over their children’s education. The decision specifically addressed sexual education. According to the opinion of the three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit: 

“There is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children…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.”

Congressman Trent Franks, who has led the charge on the House side decrying activist courts, said the Court’s ruling was appalling:

“Many parents in this country have long been denied the right to choose where there child is educated, now the Ninth Circuit has taken it one step further and denied parents the right to decide how their children learn about some of the most significant and private matters that are experienced in this world.  Setting aside the question of Constitutional rights, this decision demonstrates blatant disregard for the inherent rights of parents.  This is just the latest outrage to come from the Ninth Circuit, which has become the poster child for judicial activism.” 

“In reaching its decision, the court presupposed what the parents meant in their assertion of the 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’ and extended the argument of the parents by saying that the parents argued for ‘exclusive’ control, apparently just so that it could affirm the dismissal of their claim.  Conveniently, and outrageously, the court also ignored the fact that the children involved in this case were first, third, and fifth grade students.” 

The Court’s decision also contained this sentence:

“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.”

Congressman Franks: “Putting aside for the moment the ridiculous notion that parents give up their rights at the schoolhouse door, I would like to point out that this decision presupposes that parents actually have a choice in where they send their kids to school. Sadly, that is not the case in most of this country. If school administrators are to have the right to put whatever they want in the curriculum, then parents should—at a minimum—be guaranteed the right to choose which school to enroll their children.  Anything less is an unconscionable abrogation of parents’ rights.” 

Trent Franks is the Congressman from the 2nd Congressional District of Arizona.  He is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the House Judiciary Committee and Vice Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee.