Why indoctrinated kids just handed the Big Apple to a radical Marxist



Zohran Mamdani didn’t win New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary because he is young and charismatic, empathizes with people’s everyday grievances, or ran a brilliant campaign. The real reason is much more terrifying.

The reason the Muslim Marxist from Queens crushed his opponents may be summarized in two words: indoctrinated kids. Simple math shows you what happened.

This isn’t going to remain isolated to New York City. This playbook is about to be replicated faster than E. coli in petri dishes in every city across America.

New York City counts roughly 5.1 million registered voters. Between 750,000 and 850,000 are between the ages of 18 and 29. Another 1.6 to 1.8 million fall between 30 and 49.

Together, those groups total about 2.5 million voters — half the city’s electorate. In other words, half of New York’s voting base consists of what I call “indoctrinated kids.”

Ten years ago, I had a recurring weekly segment on my show called “Campus Madness.” Every week, we told the grisly stories of conservative students facing awful discrimination on campus — simply because they were conservative: grades docked, free speech infringed, humiliation by professors, denied funding from the student body, and so on. The point of the segment was to expose the rampant abuse of conservatives on leftist college campuses.

But honestly, we missed the point. Sure, conservative students faced discrimination — and still do. That was unjust and remains a serious problem.

The greater threat came from students who arrived on campus either apolitical or mildly liberal. They didn’t face discrimination. They didn’t need to. They were the targets.

Their minds were open and their politics malleable. Four years later, they emerged not as moderates but as committed Marxists — true believers in a worldview shaped by relentless indoctrination. Their professors didn’t just challenge ideas. They hammered home an agenda: anti-American, anti-white, anti-God, anti-human.

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  Photo by Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Back then, people joked, “Wait till these silly Millennials get to the real world.” Nope. Those students brought their radicalism with them. Instead of waking up, they woke everything else. And the result is today’s “woke-ified” culture — one shaped more by the classroom than by common sense.

Returning to how this nutty Muslim Marxist just won the Democrat primary for mayor, New York City’s voting demographic explains it all.

Two and a half million of 5.1 million total registered voters are in the “indoctrinated kids” age bracket. One million of those 2.5 million are college graduates. That means 20% of voters in the city are the product of the Marxist indoctrination factories we call “colleges” and “universities.”

Only 11% of New York City voters of all ages are registered Republicans, so read the writing on the wall.

Zohran Mamdani isn't the Democrats’ nominee because voters didn’t understand his Marxism. The indoctrinated kids chose Mamdani because of his Marxism.

The indoctrinated kids are committed radical leftist ideologues — thanks to our colleges and universities that were subverted decades ago by communists who knew exactly what they were doing. They were playing the long game, knowing they were stealing the minds of whole generations of youth who one day — today — would be the deciding factor in our elections.

The scariest part is that this isn’t going to remain isolated to New York City. This playbook is about to be replicated faster than E. coli in a petri dish in every city across America.

It must be stopped. President Donald Trump must defund any college or university that indoctrinates youth in anti-American ideology — including private schools that accept federally subsidized student loans and research grants. Cut it all. They won’t survive a week without the federal government’s largesse. The Marxists are in it to win it. If we don’t use the authority we have while we’re in power, the United States of America will be lost.

If you don’t believe me, just listen to Mamdani speak for two minutes.

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The lie that launched a thousand riots



For decades, academic leaders insisted on "neutrality" when it came to life’s most important questions — whether God exists, what defines the highest good, and how to live a virtuous life. But that neutrality was always a ruse. Now the roof is caving in.

In Los Angeles, rioters burn police cars, wave foreign flags, and earn praise from elected officials who call them “peaceful demonstrators.” These aren’t isolated incidents. They reflect the long-term effects of a philosophy cultivated on campus and subsidized by taxpayers.

The neutrality myth has run its course. The wolves are no longer pretending to be sheep.

The recent unrest didn’t appear out of nowhere. It’s the predictable bloom of a poisonous seed — one we let grow under the false belief that the First Amendment demands silence in the face of subversion. It doesn’t. And this strategy from America’s enemies didn’t begin last week. It’s been unfolding for decades.

Attacking the American order

Arizona State University, the nation’s largest public university, offers a snapshot of the broader national crisis. It imports professors from elite graduate programs and churns out activist graduates steeped in a worldview that condemns the United States as irredeemably evil.

Look at the student organizations ASU endorses — like MEChA, whose stated mission reads like a political ultimatum:

“[We] devote ourselves to ending settler colonialism, anti-Black racism, heteronormativity, borders and prisons because our liberation does not exist until these legacies of colonization are abolished.”

In 2024, ASU suspended the campus chapter of the far-left Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán — and only suspended them — after the group declared, “Death to the ‘Israeli’ entity! Death to the ‘American’ entity! Long live Palestine! Long live Turtle Island!”

("Turtle Island" refers to a Native American creation myth that North and Central America rest on the back of a giant turtle.)

Despite the suspension, MEChA remains listed as an active club on campus. The group still enjoys faculty support.

This isn’t about revising reading lists or replacing Shakespeare with indigenous poetry. “Decolonizing the curriculum” masks a much larger goal: revolution. This is a coalition of radicals — communists, LGBTQ+ activists, pro-Mexico nationalists, anti-Semitic “Free Palestine” organizers, land acknowledgment militants, and Islamist groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations — who align not because they share values, but because they share a target: the American constitutional order and its Christian foundations.

And yet naïve liberals and sentimental Christians often fall for the rhetoric. These groups invoke empathy, community, and sacrificial love — virtues rooted in the Christian tradition. But they weaponize those virtues. They wear sheep’s clothing to cloak their wolfish designs.

Rather than reform through representation, they aim to abolish representative government entirely. They don’t seek equality before God; they demand a transfer of power — to a Native tribe, to Mexico, or to some vague utopia where oppression has been deconstructed out of existence and LGBTQ sex litters every street corner.

That may sound absurd. It is. Mexico, after all, functions under cartel rule and bleeds citizens who risk everything to escape. But revolutions don’t require coherence. Absurdity often accelerates them. These movements aren’t governed by logic or principle. They run on resentment — the fury of those who believe life cheated them.

What the moment demands is moral clarity. That begins with rejecting the lie of neutrality.

Neutral education is a lie

A “neutral” education doesn’t exist. Every curriculum is built on a view of the “good life.” Every professor teaches from a vision of what humans are and what we are meant for. When we allowed universities to abandon the pursuit of wisdom and virtue — to stop teaching that God created us and that our rights come from him — we didn’t establish neutrality. We created a vacuum — and radicals rushed in to fill it.

As a professor, I’ve seen firsthand how godless academics wield the First Amendment as both shield and sword. They argue that “free speech” protects those who seek to dismantle the very system that guarantees that right, while insisting those same protections exclude Christian ideas from the classroom.

But the Constitution doesn’t require taxpayers to subsidize sedition. Nothing compels a university to hire professors who publicly call for the abolition of the American republic.

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  Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images

This isn’t about banning ideas. People can believe whatever they want. But taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to underwrite the education of young Americans in philosophies that teach them their country is an imperial cancer.

If a professor wants to advocate abolishing the United States, let him do it honestly. Declare it on the syllabus. Reject public funding. And stop pretending any of this qualifies as neutral education.

A little truth in advertising would go a long way. Imagine just a few basic reforms.

Preparation: Professors should demonstrate a grasp of foundational truths — about God, goodness, virtue, wisdom, and the greatness of the U.S. Constitution. Anyone who denies these basics has no business teaching at a taxpayer-funded institution. Private universities exist for that. Once upon a time, American universities valued this knowledge, often requiring courses in natural theology for all students.

Transparency: Require state-employed professors to disclose if their courses promote a political or ideological agenda — especially one hostile to the principles on which this country was founded.

Accountability: Tie public funding to standards that reflect the values of the citizens footing the bill. That includes respect for the rule of law, representative government, and the God-given rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

Reform: Restore universities that teach what used to be obvious — that God is our Creator and knowing Him is the highest good of human life. State dollars come with strings. Those strings should include love of God and country.

That last point may sound idealistic, but it’s far more grounded than the utopian fantasies now taught with your tax dollars. It takes human nature seriously. It acknowledges the need for redemption, the pursuit of virtue and wisdom, and the moral order built into creation.

It’s time for students, parents, donors, governors, pastors — and yes, President Donald Trump — to recognize what the Los Angeles riots truly represent: not just political unrest, but philosophical collapse. The neutrality myth has run its course. The wolves are no longer pretending to be sheep. They’re outside your child’s classroom, dressed in regalia, holding a metaphorical Molotov cocktail.

Enough pretending. The time for reform has come.

School board tells teachers 'family' is a white supremacist term



A school board distributed the teachings of a faculty member who was hired through a race-based initiative to tell staff that families are a product of white supremacy.

The faculty member, Dr. Laura Mae Lindo, focuses her research on "addressing social justice" and was hired at a local university through what is known as a "black hiring cluster." The "equity-based" hiring initiative was for black and "Indigenous" people only, with Lindo being one of 10 ethnicity-based hires.

Given Dr. Lindo's past discourses on "race in comedy" and the "whiteness" of philosophy, her teachings on families should come as no surprise.

'The erasure of the family structure has objectively been a net negative for society.'

Internal training documents obtained by True North reporter Melanie Bennet showed that not only were staff at the Waterloo Region District School Board in Ontario, Canada, given materials that said "family" is a white supremacist term but also that ideas like "objectivity" and a "sense of urgency" are part of a white supremacist culture, as well.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation distributed slides to district employees containing Lindo's curious wisdom, which said:

"Biases are the socialized teachings of the white culture," and "we use key words and phrases to promote the dominant culture."

RELATED: 'Gotta keep it quiet': Dean of students who kept DEI alive at UNC reaps the whirlwind

  Image courtesy Melanie Bennet/True North/Juno News

The word "family" puts males in an authority position, the document said, while a "nuclear family structure" is not the same for everyone, and therefore the term should not be used.

According to the report, another slide asserts that if one is to ask for evidence for claims of racism, this is simply a "characteristic of whiteness" that must be dismantled, as is acknowledging that racism against white people exists.

A slide titled "unpacking whiteness" listed a series of terms as "characteristics of white supremacy culture."

Those terms included: individualism, the right to comfort, worship of the written word, defensiveness, paternalism, and the fear of open conflict.

The source who provided the indoctrination materials chose to remain anonymous but provided a quote to Juno News about the staff's reaction.

"Teachers just want to get on with their job of teaching," the source said. "Ideology — if you will — is just something many teachers acknowledge as being present. They just want to get on with their jobs."

RELATED: Democrats are just noticing a long, deep-running problem

  Image courtesy Melanie Bennet/True North/Juno News

Reporter Natasha Biase, who lives near the region where the materials were distributed, called it "mind boggling" that educators are pushing such detrimental materials on children.

Biase told Blaze News, "The erasure of the family structure has objectively been a net negative for society, and we haven't even seen its full impact yet. Parents need to step in and stand up for their children by pushing back against this nonsense."

According to the insider who provided the documents, staff members have to "be careful" about who they share their training information with. They also said it was unclear how many staff members agreed or disagreed with the material.

"Whether [anyone within the administration] believes it or not is anyone's guess," the source added.

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Amy Coney Barrett’s recusal leaves religious liberty twisting in the wind



The U.S. Supreme Court’s 4-4 deadlock last week left intact the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling against St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School — a failure of constitutional courage and a setback for educational freedom.

The tie lets stand a decision that discriminates against faith-based institutions by denying them the same public charter school opportunities extended to secular organizations. It rests on a misguided reading of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and ignores the protections guaranteed by the Free Exercise clause.

Families deserve more than crumbling bureaucracies and ideological indoctrination. They need real alternatives — the kind private and parochial schools have offered for generations.

Plaintiffs, including the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board, made a compelling case: Excluding St. Isidore solely because of its Catholic identity violates the Constitution.

In Carson v. Makin (2022), the Supreme Court ruled that states cannot deny religious organizations access to public benefits otherwise available to all. Charter schools, while publicly funded, operate independently and serve as laboratories of innovation. St. Isidore committed to meeting Oklahoma’s curriculum standards and serving any student who applied. Its disqualification stemmed from one reason alone: its religious mission.

That’s religious discrimination, plain and simple.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court misread the Establishment Clause, and the U.S. Supreme Court failed to correct the error. The clause doesn’t forbid religious organizations to participate in public programs. It forbids the state to establish an official religion — not from offering families the freedom to choose a Catholic education within a public framework.

St. Isidore wouldn’t force anyone to adhere to Catholic doctrine. It would simply give parents another option — one grounded in a Judeo-Christian worldview and committed to academic excellence. Banning that option undermines pluralism and silences voices that have historically delivered high standards and moral clarity in American education.

Meanwhile, public education in the United States teeters toward collapse. Students trail their peers globally. In some districts, basic literacy remains out of reach. Families deserve more than crumbling bureaucracies and ideological indoctrination. They need real alternatives — the kind private and parochial schools have offered for generations.

Faith-based schools routinely outperform their government-run counterparts. Instead of blocking them from public charter programs, states should welcome their success and harness their model. Innovation doesn’t threaten the system. It might save it.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, despite claiming to be a Republican, sided with liberal secularists in opposing St. Isidore. His legal brief warned of “chaos” and raised alarm over hypothetical funding for “radical Islamic schools” — a tired slippery-slope argument that ignores the core issue of equal treatment under the law.

RELATED: This red-state attorney general has declared war on the First Amendment

 Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images

Drummond abandoned conservative principles like school choice and religious liberty. Instead, he backed those who place rigid interpretations of church-state separation above fairness. His stance helped fuel the Supreme Court’s deadlock and undercut Oklahoma families seeking diverse educational options.

The Supreme Court’s failure to resolve this question, due in part to Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s recusal, leaves a constitutional gray area: Can states bar religious organizations from public programs that remain open to everyone else?

Parents deserve the right to choose schools that reflect their values — whether religious or secular. By excluding St. Isidore, the state has effectively declared that faith-based institutions are second-class citizens. That’s not just bad policy. It’s a dangerous precedent in a nation founded on religious liberty.

The founders never intended to wall off religion from public life. They saw the Christian faith and Judeo-Christian values as cornerstones of strong, free societies. Most early American schools were church-run. Today, the pendulum has swung too far to the left. Progressive bureaucrats attack the very moral foundations that made America successful in the first place.

If we want to make America great again, we need to reclaim those values and push back against the cultural nonsense that sidelines faith.

If we want to reverse the decline of American education, we need more choices — not fewer. This fight isn’t over. Oklahoma will keep defending parental rights and religious freedom. The St. Isidore case remains unfinished business — and we intend to finish it. Faith-based schools must have the freedom to educate our children without unconstitutional restrictions.

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Our education system is ripe for root-and-stem reform.

What happens when you tell a philosopher ‘No’



We need more philosophers to resign from their university posts.

Graham Parsons, a philosophy professor at West Point, resigned from his tenured position in protest. Good for him. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded bluntly: “You will not be missed.” The question is, what exactly was Parsons’ “principled stand” — and should others follow his lead? I think they should, though not necessarily for the reasons one might expect. If more professors who insist on injecting gender ideology into the curriculum refused to teach, we might finally begin to salvage the American university.

Professors like Parsons saw themselves as soldiers in the struggle for social justice, fighting racism and oppression. Now they’re being asked to face an uncomfortable reality.

So, why did Parsons quit? In his own words: “I cannot tolerate these changes, which prevent me from doing my job responsibly. I am ashamed to be associated with the academy in its current form.” He accuses West Point of “failing to provide an adequate education for the cadets” under current leadership. That’s a serious charge. Parsons blames policies linked to Trump and Hegseth for undermining what he views as essential to a proper military education.

But what does he actually mean by “adequate education”? What does he believe West Point no longer teaches? That’s the real question — and one worth examining closely.

Parsons explains his position in the New York Times: “Whatever you think about various controversial ideas — Mr. Hegseth’s memo cited critical race theory and gender ideology — students should engage with them and debate their merits rather than be told they are too dangerous even to be contemplated.”

There it is. Parsons frames the issue as a crackdown on academic freedom, where professors no longer have permission to address controversial topics or challenge prevailing orthodoxy. Educators, he argues, must now parrot the government’s message and abandon real critical inquiry. He adds that “uncritically asserting that [America] is ‘the most powerful force for good in human history’ is not something an educator does.”

But Parsons isn’t just teaching anywhere — he’s at West Point. His objection isn’t a minor complaint about classroom nuance. It amounts to a rejection of teaching American greatness and a defense of gender theory and critical race theory as serious intellectual frameworks. He calls the academy “uncritical,” but what he really objects to is any attempt to affirm America’s moral legacy. In practice, Parsons sees the affirmation of the United States as inherently disqualifying.

The result? Criticizing CRT gets framed as dogma, while embracing it becomes the default. Rather than weigh arguments, educators must now accept gender ideology and race theory as truth — and sideline any defense of the country’s founding principles.

Parsons does offer specific examples of the curriculum changes he opposes. He claims West Point interpreted directives from Trump and Hegseth not just as a rejection of critical race theory and intersectionality, but as a broader ban on using race and gender as organizing principles in the curriculum.

RELATED: Pride over preparedness: How LGBTQ+ activism is weakening our forces

  Cunaplus_M.Faba via iStock/Getty Images

Parsons says department heads ordered a review of syllabi and forced faculty to revise them. “West Point scrapped two history courses — ‘Topics in Gender History’ and ‘Race, Ethnicity, Nation’ — and an English course, ‘Power and Difference,’” he writes. The academy eliminated the sociology major and shut down a black history project. Department leaders also told professors to remove readings by James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and other minority authors.

He then describes how these directives affected his own classroom. “One of my supervisors ordered professors to get rid of readings on white supremacy in Western ethical theory and feminist approaches to ethics in ‘Philosophy and Ethical Reasoning,’ a course I direct that is required for all cadets,” Parsons writes. He even claims the West Point debate team was barred from arguing certain positions in an upcoming competition.

These details offer a clearer picture of his true grievance. Parsons didn’t resign over routine administrative changes. He stepped down because he could no longer teach what he believes: that white supremacy and feminist critiques of ethics are essential to understanding just war theory — a subject he has written about. He wants to use critical theory to criticize America, but he won’t subject critical theory itself to scrutiny.

Parsons demands that others question everything — except the assumptions behind his own beliefs. He’s like Descartes, but with highly selective skepticism.

In one of his articles, Parsons writes, “War theorists should be much more concerned with the gender and war literature and find common ground with feminists who have treated the problem of the political standing of soldiers as a philosophical priority.” This isn’t a neutral invitation to critical inquiry — it’s ideological advocacy. Parsons seems to think his view is correct and wants his students to adopt it. He’s not interested in weighing all perspectives; he’s advancing a particular dogma.

West Point, by contrast, has begun restoring a classical standard of education. Instructors are expected to equip students to identify flawed arguments and refute them. Professors must demonstrate why certain ideas fall short — and train cadets to do the same.

Parsons wants us to believe he resigned because he could no longer teach students how to think critically. He suggests the academy is censoring dissent. On the surface, that sounds like a position many academics might support. But his resignation tells a different story. It wasn’t about open inquiry — it was about losing the ability to promote his ideology without challenge.

Let me explain what it’s like to be a conservative inside a university. I’ve been told to revise my curriculum to fit a “decolonized” version of philosophy. At Arizona State University, I was the only professor who spoke up and said that crossed the line. Where were my leftist colleagues who now applaud Graham Parsons? Where were all the philosophers who claim to care about examining every perspective? For the past two decades, philosophy departments have resembled Socratic dialogues where only one voice gets to speak.

In truth, most professors only raise objections when institutional changes threaten their own deeply held beliefs. When administrators impose leftist ideology in the classroom, faculty members who share that ideology rarely object. They don’t see it as dogma — they see it as truth. They call it justice, a necessary correction to history. But when directives come from a conservative administration, they suddenly call it censorship and resign in protest.

This creates a profound dilemma for professors like Parsons. They saw themselves as soldiers in the struggle for social justice, fighting racism and oppression. Now they’re being asked to face an uncomfortable reality: They may have perpetuated the very racial essentialism they once condemned. For years, they operated within a system that marginalized conservatives — just look at the partisan breakdown in university faculties. That mirror reflects something they can’t bear to see.

They became what they claimed to hate.

It is time we restored the American university to the pursuit of truth and wisdom.

Here’s my final prediction: The immediate response from these professors will be to ask, “But who gets to say what is true or wise?” And of course, that’s the most telling response of all.

That’s critical theory talking.

Philosophy professor, know thyself.

'Doctor Who' actress tells fans to 'get over' show's extreme woke content because it's 'pure and beautiful'



Actress Millie Gibson praised the woke narratives of the "Doctor Who" franchise and said fans need to simply ignore the overt LGBT tones and watch the show.

Gibson, whose real name is Amelia Eve Gibson, said in a recent interview that she was not concerned with how woke the show was, despite hordes of backlash and criticism over its extremely sexual and liberal storylines.

Last year, the show pushed rampant progressive politics right from the onset of its reboot, ushering in actor Ncuti Gatwa as their new "queer black" lead. Writer and executive producer Russell T. Davies also expressed that he had looked at other "nonbinary" actors for lead roles.

After The Standard's Martin Robinson framed the series as a critique of society that fights fascistic thinking, he asked Gibson about fan reactions to the show's strange direction that has included a drag queen and gay dance scenes.

"I'd just watch the show for what it is," Gibson said, excusing the content as nonpolitical. "I remember watching an episode where David Tennant goes back — I think it's with Martha — and they meet Shakespeare. And he's like, 'Oh yeah, Shakespeare's quite hot.' [This is] literally what Who does."

Gibson further excused the stories as "the way the world is" and said critics have been "making jabs" anywhere they could over the content.

"The show is so pure and beautiful and is literally about two best friends traveling the universe, so just watch it and get over it somewhat!" the 20-year-old requested.

The young actress then praised the aforementioned drag queen, "Jinkx Monsoon," and referred to the male entertainer as a woman.

"I'm her biggest fan. I don't think it's a problem at all."

Gibson's suggestion for fans to remain blissfully unaware of the show's politics strays from the methods her co-star has implemented to deal with the show's record-low ratings.

After critics took issue with dialogue from Gatwa's character like, "I spent a long, hot summer with Harry Houdini," the actor told the audience not to watch if they were not in support of "queer rights."

"Don't watch. Turn off the TV. Go and touch grass, please, for God's sake," he told Variety last year. "As the world darkens — and I do think the world is darkening around queer rights — there is a joy and a celebration, and there’s a community," Gatwa claimed.

  Millie Gibson (left) and Ncuti Gatwa (right) have delivered record lows in ratings with extreme progressive storylines in 'Doctor Who.' Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images

Executive producer Davies has taken things a step further, however, and admitted in a 2023 interview that he believes it is important for children to learn about transgender themes at a young age.

"Visibility" is important, Davies said, adding that bigotry can be avoided "if you grow up seeing this stuff."

Davies also claimed that "homophobia and transphobia happens when it's something you've never seen before."

'People are having negative reactions to their beloved series forcing cultural and political narratives on them.'

English reporter Lewis Brackpool told Blaze News that there has long been evidence of government collaboration with U.K. television production companies. He said certain institutions have been "pushing forth certain narratives knowing millions will see them on-screen."

"Topics surrounding public health, climate policy, migration, and extremism have all been pushed," Brackpool added. "While the consumer has the right to turn the program off, people are having negative reactions to their beloved series forcing cultural and political narratives on them."

— (@)  
 

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SCOTUS likely to side with parents who object to LGBT propaganda in elementary classrooms



The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in the case Mahmoud v. Taylor, concerning Maryland parents' right to shield their children from LGBT propaganda in elementary school classrooms.

Unlike liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the high court's conservative-leaning justices appeared receptive to the argument that Montgomery County Public Schools, the state's largest school district, violated the Constitution when it found a way around Maryland law to prevent parents from opting their children out of mandatory readings of LGBT propaganda.

The court's ruling in the case is expected by June.

Background

MCPS approved over 20 works of LGBT propaganda for inclusion as instructional materials in its English language arts curriculum in late 2022.

There was no mistaking the propagandistic nature of these works, which included at the outset:

  • "Pride Puppy," a book approved for pre-K students that tasks 3- and 4-year-old students with searching for items they might find at a non-straight parade — including transvestite activists, underwear, leather, "intersex flag," and feathers;
  • activist and former chair of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation Board Jodie Patterson's "Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope," a work of propaganda that seeks to normalize child sex transitions that the district approved for K-5 students;
  • "My Rainbow," a story about a mother's efforts to groom her transvestic son;
  • "Uncle Bobby's Wedding," about a little girl's peripheral involvement in her uncle's gay "wedding"; and
  • "Intersection Allies: We Make Room for All," touted as "a smooth, gleeful entry into intersectional feminism."

The district was initially willing to let parents opt their children out of lessons incorporating the LGBT propaganda and to provide notice when such works were read, as required by state law. However, MCPS ultimately decided to deny parents the option in March 2023.

It appears the district figured it could get away with mandating the propaganda on account of a sleight of hand. State law requires opt-outs for sex education units of health classes. Since the books were instead introduced as part of the English curriculum, they are apparently not subject to the opt-out provision.

'They're not asking you to change that at all.'

Christian and Muslim parents who wanted the option not to have their kids subjected to content that stood in direct conflict with their religious beliefs took the district to court on May 24, 2023. Represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, they argued that the district's policy violated their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion.

After lesser courts refused to order MCPS to let kids opt out, the case made its way to the Supreme Court.

A sympathetic court

The conservative justices on the high court appeared to think the parents' position reasonable, the district's reasoning questionable, and the LGBT propaganda inappropriate for young children.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh told Alan Schoenfeld, who represented the school board, that the parents are not asking the district "to change what's taught in the classroom. They're not asking you to change that at all."

Kavanaugh clarified that "they're only seeking to be able to walk out so that they don't have — so the parents don't have their children exposed to these things that are contrary to their own beliefs."

Justice Samuel Alito appeared to be of a similar mind, saying, "The plaintiffs here are not asking the school to change its curriculum. They're just saying, 'Look, we want out.' Why isn't that feasible? What is the big deal about allowing them to opt out of this?"

'It's a message that a lot of people who hold on to traditional religious beliefs don't agree with.'

Justice Clarence Thomas was keen to know whether the consumption of the LGBT propaganda was voluntary or compelled, asking "why the record shows that the children are more than merely exposed to these sorts of things in the storybooks."

Eric Baxter, who argued on behalf of the parents and serves as vice president at Becket, emphasized to Justice Thomas that "teachers are required to use the books"; that the school board made clear "that every student would be taught from the inclusivity storybooks"; and that plaintiffs' alternatives to sending their kids to these mandatory readings were "criminal fines or penalties or the expense of private school."

Justice Alito acknowledged that the books were ideological in nature and in conflict with the parents' views, noting that in the case of "Uncle Bobby's Wedding," the "book has a clear message, and a lot of people think it's a good message, and maybe it is a good message, but it's a message that a lot of people who hold on to traditional religious beliefs don't agree with."

Justice Neil Gorsuch suggested that certain statements from board members hint at a hostility toward parents' sincerely held religious beliefs.

"We have some statements from board members suggesting the students were ... parroting their parents' dogma, suggesting that some parents might be promoting hate, and suggesting that it was unfortunate that they were taking a view endorsed by white supremacists and xenophobes," said Gorsuch.

Schoenfeld claimed that the statements in which officials suggested parents were bigots "have been taken out of context" and that the record did not indicate they motivated the board to "adopt a policy that discriminates against people on the basis of religion."

'The Supreme Court, I predict, will stand with parents.'

When discussing whether it constitutes a burden to be exposed to this sort of instruction, Justice John Roberts suggested that unlike older students, younger children subjected to the LGBT propaganda are likely to naturally affirm what's being taught or presented in the books.

Judging from their questions to Baxter and Schoenfeld, the conservative justices appear to think that the district should simply accommodate religious parents.

Reactions

After going before the high court, Baxter said in a statement, "In this country, we've always trusted families to decide when their kids are ready for sensitive topics. Children shouldn’t be forced into conversations about drag queens, Pride parades, and gender transitions without their parents' permission. Today, we fought for common sense and parents' right to guide the upbringing of their children."

Billy Moges, director of the Kids First parental advocacy group that sued over the books, said, "Schools should be working with parents, not against us. We are our children’s primary teachers, not obstacles to be avoided. Today, we asked the court to remind Montgomery County — and the entire nation — of this fundamental truth."

"The Mahmoud case argued in the Supreme Court today is quite simple. Montgomery County school officials want to expose young children to progressive sexual ideology against their parents' wishes," said legal scholar Robert George, director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. "The parents want to be able to opt their kids out of this propagandizing. The Supreme Court, I predict, will stand with parents — probably 6-3 (maybe even 7-2). It will be another victory for Becket, the public interest religious liberty law firm representing the parents."

Some activists are upset over the prospect of the high court once again upholding parental rights.

PEN America, a left-leaning organization that filed an amicus brief in support of the district, for instance, claimed in a statement that granting opt-outs for parents would "stigmatize LGBTQ students and families, who would watch their peers leave classrooms when books that include LGBTQ characters or themes are used."

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‘Tough Case To Argue’: SCOTUS Poised To Back Parental Opt-Out For LGBT Content In School

'I guess I’m surprised, given that this is ... the hill we’re going to die on in terms of not respecting religious liberty,' Kavanaugh said, telling the county attorney it was a 'tough case to argue.'