Classroom Censorship
Public education should be a space where students can engage with a wide range of ideas, even if those ideas are controversial or challenge prevailing norms. Schools should serve as environments where a wide spectrum of ideas can be openly discussed and explored without restriction.
By this point, all members of our communities have likely heard about ongoing efforts to censor the instruction of history, especially as it relates to race and racism, gender and sexuality, and other topics that invite and encourage students to critically engage with the legacies of our country.
Rather than protecting students (as much of this legislation claims to set out to do), these bills would limit their education and rob students of imperative lessons about our past that will prepare them for our future. These bills also create a culture of surveillance that makes the daily work of teachers, librarians, and other public servants more difficult.
HB 805 (Anti-Trans/School Censorship Bill), which became law after the General Assembly overrode the Governor’s veto, impacts transgender and nonbinary people throughout the state, while also limiting the curriculum and materials schools can provide to their students. This law allows parents to prohibit their child from checking out certain books in the school library for any reason and pull their child from any classroom activity or discussion that they believe burdens their religion. It also requires schools to house children on field trips according to their sex assigned at birth.
SB 227 (Eliminating "DEI" in Public Education) was passed by the General Assembly, vetoed by Governor Stein, but could potentially be overridden and passed into law. It proposes to censor curricula on race, gender, and the lived experiences of marginalized groups in K-12 public education. We are closely watching this bill because classroom censorship efforts work to effectively erase the history and lived experiences of women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people, and censor discussions around race, gender, and sexuality that impact people’s daily lives.
Court Cases
Mahmoud v. Taylor: Supreme Court case requiring schools to allow religious opt-outs from curriculum.
On April 9, 2025, the ACLU and ACLU of Maryland filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in its efforts to ensure that its English Language Arts curriculum is LGBTQ-inclusive.
In 2022, MCPS added storybooks featuring LGBTQ+ characters to its elementary-school English curriculum. Soon thereafter, some parents requested that their children be excused from class when the books were used. Although schools initially accommodated these objections, by March 2023 the growing number of opt-out requests became unmanageable and undermined the schools’ educational obligations toward inclusion, equity, and respect. MCPS informed parents that opt-outs would no longer be permitted in the new school year.
In a June 2025 opinion, a 6-3 majority of the Court ruled that the group of parents would be likely to succeed in their claims and are therefore entitled to a preliminary injunction.