The Conflict Over Parents' Rights - Vivian E. Hamilton William & Mary Law School

In a 1905 opin- ion, for example, a federal court rejected a father’s claim that the state lacked authority to interfere with his constitutional rights to parental custody; the court’s opinion noted point- edly that “there is no parental authority independent of the supreme power of the state.”12 The evolution of the concept of parental rights reflected larger political and legal shifts. [...] The Court invalidated the statute and re- emphasized that “the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court.”18 The Court has also suggested that when parents assert challenges on the grounds of both 1st Amendment free exercise of religion as well as 14th Amendment parental rights, state. [...] more than merely a ‘reasonable relation to some purpose within the competency of the State’ is required to sus- tain the validity of the State’s requirement under the First Amendment.”19 While the Court has in some cases While the Court has in some cases required required states to defer to parental states to defer to parental authority, it has authority, it has also affirmed also affirmed the sta. [...] a dress code, these issues of public education are generally committed to the control of state and local authorities.26 Thus, appellate courts have found nothing in Supreme Court precedent that supports the conclusion that “parents have a fundamental right to the upbringing and education of the child that includes the right to tell public schools what to teach or what not to teach him or her.”27 F. [...] These include: protecting both the welfare and the autonomy of the young; enabling them to make their own life choices as and after they mature; ensur- ing that as adults they will have the capacity to meaningfully participate in the democratic government serving a diverse, multicultural population; and, preparing them to enter the workforce capable of sustaining the private and public institution.