​Under the leadership of Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.), the House Ways and Means Committee approved the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) on Wednesday as part of the tax package in President Trump’s “big, beautiful” reconciliation bill. This measure provides $20 billion in tax credits over the next four years to non-profit Scholarship Granting Organizations to pay private school tuition and educational materials for children throughout the United States.
 
“This is hopeful news for millions of American students and their parents,” said Bob Goodlatte, former Congressman and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Senior Policy Advisor to Protect The 1st. “Giving parents the ability to choose the best school for their children is a powerful expression of the First Amendment across the generations. Whether parents choose a private school that specializes in the sciences and technology, or the arts, or a religious school, they are free to make the best choice for their children.
 
“Our gratitude goes to Chairman Smith and all of his colleagues who stood behind the ECCA,” Goodlatte said. “We are also grateful to the followers of Protect The 1st who answered our call to let House Members know how important this legislation is to the families and children of America.
 
“We urge more Members to get behind the passage of this bill by the full House and the Senate, and its delivery to the president’s desk.”

​A federal court has blocked the government from transferring Oak Flat to a foreign-owned mining company, preserving the sacred Apache site while the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether to hear the case. The ruling is a powerful rebuke of the federal rush to transfer the land, which Western Apaches consider a portal to the Creator and the center of their religious life.
 
Judge Steven P. Logan concluded that “there is no close question in this matter,” finding it “abundantly clear that the balance of equities ‘tips sharply’ in Plaintiff’s favor.” He emphasized that the Apaches face “a likelihood of irreparable harm should the transfer proceed” and that the case presents “serious questions on the merits that warrant the Supreme Court’s careful scrutiny.”
 
Oak Flat, which sits within Arizona’s Tonto National Forest, has been central to Apache religion for centuries. For 70 years, it has been protected from mining, until a 2014 defense bill provision set the stage for its transfer to Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of a multinational firm partially owned by a Chinese corporation.
 
If the mine goes forward, the Apache will forever lose their ability to perform ceremonies tied to the land. Resolution Copper plans to turn Oak Flat into a two-mile-wide, 1,100-foot-deep crater. That devastation would be irreversible, a loss equal in scale to dynamiting the Vatican or using the stones of the Wailing Wall as a quarry.
 
Dr. Wendsler Nosie Sr. of Apache Stronghold responded bluntly: “The federal government and Resolution Copper have put Oak Flat on death row – they are racing to destroy our spiritual lifeblood and erase our religious traditions forever.”
 
The injunction prohibits the federal government from publishing its environmental report or finalizing the land transfer until the Supreme Court either denies review or issues a final ruling. That decision halts Resolution Copper’s plans to turn Oak Flat into a massive copper mine.
 
The court rejected the argument that Apache rituals could simply be relocated, stating it was “disinclined to minimize the importance of Oak Flat to the Apache’s belief system.” As previously noted by the court in 2021, the mine would “close off a portal to the Creator forever and will completely devastate the Western Apaches’ spiritual lifeblood.”
 
Judge Logan also dismissed the mining company’s claims about financial harm, noting they had invested in the land years before Congress authorized the transfer and did so “voluntarily.” In contrast, the Apaches risk losing access not just to land, but to their religious future: “They cannot choose to practice their religion at all once their sacred religious site is completely ‘obliterated,’” as one dissenting judge previously wrote.
 
Oak Flat is more than a legal fight. It’s a test of whether the U.S. government will honor its promise of religious liberty when it matters most – not just in speech, but in action. The Apache’s sacred ground deserves the same protection any church, synagogue, or mosque would be afforded. If the Apache lose, Americans of all faiths will lose as well.

​The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a civil rights investigation into Washington State Senate Bill 5375, a new law that forces Catholic priests to break the seal of confession or face criminal consequences. Signed into law on May 2 by Gov. Bob Ferguson (D-WA), the bill mandates that clergy report suspected child abuse, even if the information is obtained during a sacramental confession. The investigation focuses on whether the law violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom by criminalizing a practice that has been protected under both religious doctrine and U.S. legal tradition for more than two centuries.
 
SB 5375 adds clergy to the list of mandatory reporters of child abuse but does so with one key difference: it refuses to honor the long-standing legal and religious protection for confessional secrecy. Unlike doctors or lawyers, clergy are denied any exemption.
 
“This law demands that Catholic priests violate their deeply held faith in order to obey the law,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, calling the law a violation of the First Amendment. The Catholic Church, for its part, has warned that any priest who complies will be automatically excommunicated, reinforcing the absolute nature of the confessional seal in Catholic doctrine.
 
While the law is presented as a measure to protect children, its specific targeting of clergy reveals a more troubling agenda. Other professions maintain their confidentiality rights. Only clergy are denied theirs. That double standard invites constitutional scrutiny and raises the question of whether the law was crafted not just for protection, but for punishment. And it destroys any semblance of either religious neutrality or general applicability in the process.
 
Proponents argue that the law is necessary. But even if the goal is admirable, the means are unlawful. No predator will confess if he knows it will lead to arrest. The practical result is a law that does nothing to prevent abuse and everything to trample religious rights.
 
Gov. Ferguson dismissed the federal investigation as political. Yet it is the state’s law that politicizes religion, forcing clergy to choose between faith and compliance. That’s not accountability – it’s coercion.
 
The law is set to take effect on July 27. Unless blocked in court, priests in Washington State will soon face an impossible choice: obey the law and betray their faith, or uphold their faith and face legal punishment. That’s a choice no free society should ever demand of its citizens.

​Georgia Dillane did not attend the pro-Palestinian sit-in at Barnard College in March. She wasn’t out in the crowd; she was in the school’s WKCR radio studio anchoring a broadcast. Yet weeks later, she found herself accused by Barnard of “disorderly conduct, disruptive behavior, failure to comply, unauthorized entry, threatening behavior, and theft, vandalism or damage to property.” All for doing her job as a journalist.
 
Her colleague, Celeste Gamble, was at the scene, but only as a credentialed student reporter. She left when told by police to evacuate. There is no reason to believe she was anything but professional in her role as an objective observer. Yet, like Dillane, Gamble received emails from Barnard’s CARES (Community Accountability, Response, and Emergency Services) office demanding she meet without legal counsel to “refute any suggestion” of wrongdoing. Neither student had been disruptive. Neither had committed any known infraction. Yet they were treated as suspects.
 
Dillane’s offense appears to be little more than journalism. Her real “crime” was that a man later arrested by immigration authorities could be heard in her audio report. That connection, however tenuous, was enough to get her flagged as a potential wrongdoer just weeks before graduation, which had temporarily been put in jeopardy.
 
This is not an isolated incident. As we’ve noted in our coverage of Tufts Ph.D. student Rumeysa Orturk, moral panic over campus protests is now being weaponized against students with the flimsiest of links to the turmoil. Orturk, too, was no ringleader – just a signatory to a student op-ed, sober and serious, that was critical of Israel. Orturk was arrested and nearly deported before a judge intervened.
 
The recent spike in antisemitism on college campuses is real, troubling, and must be countered and kept from happening again. Hate speech and threats of violence must always be taken seriously by college administrations. But the solution cannot be to launch witch hunts against students who write, report, or question. Colleges and universities are where the principle of free inquiry – so foundational to our democracy – is meant to be practiced.
 
If journalism is rebranded as “disruption,” and if signing an op-ed becomes a pretext for arrest, we risk sliding from law enforcement into the realm of viewpoint persecution. Institutions like Barnard should be defending their students’ right to report and speak freely, not joining in the chorus of overreaction.
 
Even though New York’s shield law provides strong protections for journalists, including an absolute privilege for confidential sources, it doesn’t cover unpaid student reporters. Still, courts in the Second Circuit have found that student journalists can claim a qualified First Amendment privilege if they gather news for public distribution. Undermining their independence betrays both press freedom and the core mission of higher education.
 
In this age of guilt by association, the pursuit of actual wrongdoers can give way to the harassment of innocent people, even those who (unlike the two student journalists) have opinions we detest. We should remember freedom means protecting dissenters we disagree with, and standing up for process even when we’re angry. Otherwise, we lose not only our cool, but our constitutional compass.

​Quick, fill in the blanks below.
 
There is no God but _______ and _________ is his messenger.
 
At a loss? Here is some Q&A guidance:
 
“Who Is Allah?” Answer: “Allah is the one God who created the heavens and the earth, who has no equal and is all powerful.”
 
And this:
 
“Who is Muhammad?” Answer: “Muhammad (Peace be upon him) is the last & final Messenger of God. God gave him the Noble Quran.”
 
The above comes from a lesson plan from a class in Chatham Middle School in New Jersey. This and other material prompted a lawsuit by Libby Hilsenrath on behalf of her minor son when he was exposed to these questions and prompts in a seventh-grade World Cultures and Geography class.
 
In addition, Hilsenrath’s son was exposed to videos alternating between quotations from the Quran and a series of questions and answers about Islam. The course included an animated cartoon explaining the “Five Pillars of Islam.”
 
Hilsenrath sued, claiming that her son’s right to free expression of religion under the First Amendment were violated by this outright proselytizing of Islam. The teachings amounted to a government establishment of religion. A federal district court disagreed. Now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has just upheld the ruling of the lower court.
 
Protect The 1st agrees with the Third Circuit’s opinion. The reasons why are critical to making the distinction between government establishment of a religion and teaching about a religion.
 
The Chatham Middle School’s World Cultures and Geography class included units focused on six different regions of the world. Students not only studied the history of these regions, but also their religion(s).
 
As we’ve long noted, schools cannot properly teach American history without examining the motivations and beliefs of Christians, from the Puritans to the Great Awakening, the abolitionists and the civil rights movement. Similarly, in class Chatham students were taught about the basic tenets of Christianity and its missionary impulse when studying Latin America, about Hinduism and Buddhism in Asia, and about Islam when studying the Middle East.
 
The curriculum referred to “what Muslims believe” instead of what students should believe. It was a respectful deep dive into Islam that will help any of the non-Muslim students in the class who might later travel to a Muslim country to understand the beliefs and sensibilities of their hosts.
 
In recent decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court has looked back to history as a guide to what an actual establishment of religion – forbidden by the First Amendment – would look like. It would include government control over the doctrine and personnel of a religion. It might mandate attendance at worship and sanction those who did not. It might punish dissenters and restrict their political participation. It might provide support for the favored religion and give it a monopoly over certain civic functions.
 
The lesson plan of Chatham Middle School did not include any of these hallmarks of a religious establishment.
 
Just as it is wrong to use the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to shut down the teaching of the role of churches in American history, it also should not be used to keep children ignorant about the role of world religions. There is literally no way to understand modern Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, or Indonesia without reference to their Islamic heritage. 
 
In many secular contexts, there is a growing impulse – one could call it theophobia – regarding any reference to religion, or inclusion of religious schools or organizations in public programs or venues, as an automatic constitutional violation. But this is not the law.
 
The Establishment Clause means what it says, but it does not require religion to be handled as if it were radioactive.
 
Parents do have a role in imparting religious beliefs. “The United States of America is not Sparta,” the Third Circuit declared, “where children were considered wards of the state. Parents are the first and foremost teachers of their children.” When a school board elected by parents decides to teach children about the world and its many beliefs, however, that is also the First Amendment in action.

​Elite universities have undeniably become academies of progressive ideology, in dire need of diversity of thought and opinion. They have also become bastions of racial discrimination, as the Supreme Court found in its 2023 opinion, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, ruling that Harvard’s admissions policy violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. With President Trump announcing on Friday that he will revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, a court might well decide that Harvard’s admissions and hiring policies, and its tolerance of antisemitism on campus, make it a legitimate target for tough action.
 
But the order to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status and the administration’s April 11th letter to Harvard setting conditions for continued federal funding raise other concerns that should trouble defenders of academic freedom, especially those who are conservatives.
 
The administration tied further federal funding to reforms to the school’s curriculum and culture. Whether or not Harvard needs reform, this plainly infringes on Harvard’s First Amendment rights, endeavoring to trade Harvard’s progressive “ideological capture” for a different kind of capture – outright government control. And if successful, subsequent efforts to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status will open the floodgates to future abuses of power that conservatives will live to regret.
 
This is the inherent danger of the administration’s desire to create a superhighway for federal control of academic freedom. In Harvard’s complaint filed in federal court in Massachusetts, the university quoted the Supreme Court’s Moody v. Netchoice (2024) decision that “The First Amendment does not permit the government to ‘interfere with private actors’ speech to advance its own vision of ideological balance.’”
 
Harvard didn’t have to look far for that precedent. The U.S. Supreme Court proclaimed it in 2024, when it found that government cannot suppress disfavored speech by threat of sanctions. Based on the plain text of the government’s letter, that seems exactly the administration’s aim here. 
 
New questions will arise now that President Trump is ordering the IRS to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status. As The Wall Street Journal pointed out in a recent editorial, some precedent exists that could support such an action. It is true that in 1983 the Supreme Court upheld the IRS’ revocation of Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status based on its overtly racially discriminatory practices. The Court at that time reasoned that “an institution seeking tax-exempt status must serve a public purpose and not be contrary to established public policy.” But many critics of Bob Jones were still concerned about such policies being made by the IRS on the basis of no law.
 
Beyond the legal and constitutional questions, there are more practical reasons why the administration’s actions are dangerous. Remember when the IRS targeted conservative groups for enhanced scrutiny, seemingly based on ideology? IRS official Lois Lerner catalyzed a furor among the right when emails revealed her antipathy towards conservative groups she targeted for investigation. Conservatives should also remember the many times the government has attempted to overrule traditional religious beliefs, from the FBI’s targeting of “radical, traditional Catholics,” to management of the conscience rights of religiously oriented healthcare clinics.
 
Should this administration prevail in its effort to subjugate Harvard’s academic freedoms in accordance with its own ideological preferences, a precedent will be set for future administrations to control speech in other directions. Expanded powers of the presidency don’t just go away when a president leaves. They stay with the office, accumulating over time.
 
There are any number of less constitutionally dubious means of working with colleges and universities to introduce more heterodoxy into academic circles. And Harvard, for your part, you ought to respond to this moment by hiring at least a few conservatives – intellectuals who represent a large plurality of this country and, recently, a majority of its voters.

​A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has issued an injunction that bars the Trump administration from enforcing an executive order against the law firm Perkins Coie. The order had forbidden the more than 1,200 Perkins Coie lawyers from entering federal buildings or from holding national security clearances – crippling restrictions for many of these lawyers, their clients, and their ongoing cases.

The reason for the president’s anger at this firm is clear. A Perkins Coie attorney – who has long since left the law firm – was involved in the pass-through for Clinton campaign funds in 2016 connected to the Steele dossier, since discredited by the Justice Department Inspector General.

But the sweeping action against the firm’s many lawyers and their clients is seen by most of the legal community as overreach.

Conservative legal writer Andrew McCarthy wrote in National Review that this order is “a brazenly unconstitutional attempt to put the law firm out of business – or, just as likely, to extort tens of millions of dollars in legal services from it, as the president has succeeded in doing with several similarly targeted law firms, which decided to settle rather than continue to fight while hemorrhaging clients and employees.”

Now federal Judge Beryl Howell’s 102-page opinion provides a stinging rebuke to the administration. Judge Howell’s opinion begins on a puckish note, quoting Shakespeare’s Henry VI, “the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Judge Howell found:

“The Supreme Court has long made clear that ‘no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics … or other matters of opinion’ … Simply put, government officials ‘cannot … use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.’

“That, however, is exactly what is happening here.”

(Hat tip for the above to Eugene Volokh, PT1st Senior Legal Advisor).

In finding the executive order unconstitutional, Judge Howell quoted the Supreme Court’s opinion in National Rifle Association v. Vullo, in which the Court unanimously stopped an attempt by a progressive political appointee in New York State to stifle the speech rights of the NRA.
​
McCarthy and other conservative legal observers point out that the same neutral principles that protect left-leaning law firms also protect the NRA or the many conservative publications targeted with advertising blacklists by a secret State Department program. Volokh expects this case to be promptly appealed to the D.C. Court of Appeals. It will be interesting to see if the administration, in fact, does file an appeal.

​The Oak Flat sacred site in the Tonto National Forest in Arizona has undergone a Perils of Pauline ordeal in federal courts, rescued from ruin only to be tied to the tracks again before an oncoming train.
 
This land for centuries has been the centerpiece of Apache religion and the Western Apache people’s relationship with the Creator. It is now slated to be transferred to a partially Chinese-owned mining company that plans to dig a copper mine there, mutilating a site as holy to the Apache as the Vatican is to Catholics or the Wailing Wall is to Jews. If the project proceeds, all that will be left of the Apache’s sacred land will be a crater as long as the Washington Mall and as deep as two Washington Monuments.
 
The Apache’s appeal has been repeatedly relisted for possible certiorari, or an oral argument, before the Supreme Court. Not content to wait, the U.S. government has announced its intention to jump ahead of the Court and transfer Oak Flat to the mining company, circumventing the judicial process.
 
At 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Luke Goodrich of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty will present an emergency motion before Judge Steven P. Logan in federal district court in Phoenix asking him to block the transfer while the Supreme Court hears the case.
 
In a dissent from the Ninth Circuit opinion now being appealed, Judge Marsha B. Berzon declared that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) should be sufficient to protect Oak Flat. She wrote that “it would be an exceedingly odd statute that recognized and provided remedies for government-created substantial burdens on religious exercise … when it directly prevents access to religious resources.” She called the current status of the case “an illogical interpretation of RFRA” and “incoherent.”
 
This case is too important to be short-circuited or ignored. Respect for RFRA is vital to people of all faiths, which is one reason why Christian, Jewish, and other groups have joined in petitioning the courts to save Oak Flat.
 
On Sunday, Apache tribal members began an 80-mile run from Oak Flat that will end in Phoenix just before the hearing. We may not be able to join them on the run, but surely we can join them in prayer.

​With Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature on Saturday, Texas became the 16th state to embrace universal school choice.

“Gone are the days that families are limited to only the school assigned by government,” Gov. Abbott said. “The day has arrived that empowers parents to choose the school that’s best for their child.”

We only would add that thanks to the leadership of Gov. Abbott, universal school choice gives parents the ability to fully express the First Amendment by carrying their values across the generations.

That freedom will include the ability of parents to choose schools with an emphasis on STEM, on the arts, or religious-based schools.

Texas is allocating an initial budget of $1 billion to provide more than $10,000 per year for each child to pay for private school tuition. Children with disabilities will receive an additional $30,000 for extra care. Parents who homeschool their children can receive up to $2,000 a year for materials and resources. Parents will be able to access these funds though education savings accounts.

Only a few years ago, no state had universal school choice, making choice a pipe dream for most American families. With mega-states like Florida and Texas – and large states from Arizona to Tennessee and North Carolina – now embracing school choice, it is clear that school choice has moved from the periphery to the center of American life.

Where will this movement go from here? We see two fruitful avenues for further progress.

The first are states controlled by Democrats. There is no mistaking that the school choice debate has been a red-blue issue, stoutly rejected by Democratic leaders from Sacramento to Springfield. We are hopeful that as universal school choice states post positive educational results, blue-state governors will begin to rethink their reflexive opposition. Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania has been notably open to considering some form of school choice for the Keystone State.

The second avenue for progress is for the House to pass the Educational Choice for Children Act, and to ensure that it remains in the reconciliation package. This bill would create a substantial resource, through tax credits, for the private sector to support private school options with donations.
​
With a third of the states now embracing school choice, it is time to consider the unfolding of this movement as a matter of national policy.

​Protect The 1st has long advocated school choice, from secular schools that concentrate on STEM and the arts, to religiously based schools, as an important way for parents to express their First Amendment rights across generations.

Michael J. Broyde, Emory University law professor, writes in The Wall Street Journal that the Supreme Court has held in precedents ranging from Espinoza v. Montana Department of Education (2020) to Carson v. Makin (2022) that if a state funds private education, it cannot exclude religious schools.

Broyde wrote:

“Critics will worry that directly funding religious schools compromises the separation of church and state. But as the Supreme Court has clarified, public money can follow the student – even into religious settings – as long as the funding program is neutral with respect to religion, and the choice of school is made independently by parents.”
​
The inclusion of religious schools, like Oklahoma’s St. Isidore Virtual Catholic School, is an important way to promote a thriving, pluralistic, First Amendment society.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard two hours of oral argument Wednesday in a case that laid bare ideological fault lines in the Court concerning the tension between the First Amendment’s two clauses on religion, one guaranteeing its free exercise, the other forbidding any establishment of religion. While the Court has recently leaned in the direction of religious freedom, the recusal of Justice Amy Coney Barrett added a note of drama, raising the real possibility of a 4-4 split that would leave intact the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision blocking the school.

The case began when the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa created St. Isidore of Seville, a virtual Catholic school intended to serve all families, including those in rural and underserved areas. The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board approved St. Isidore’s application. But state Attorney General Gentner Drummond took the board to court, claiming it had violated both state and federal law by approving a religious school as part of the charter system. The Oklahoma Supreme Court agreed with the attorney general, ruling that charter schools are public entities and thus must be secular.

We’ve made the case that this ruling is “eminently overturnable,” resting on a legal framework polluted by Blaine Amendments – a relic of 19th-century anti-Catholic bigotry. As we explained when the Court first agreed to hear this case, the Oklahoma law’s exclusion of religious institutions from an otherwise open charter school system violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh seemed to see it the same way.
 
“Those are some of the most important cases we've had,” he said, referencing two precedents, Espinoza and Carson, “saying you can't treat religious people and religious institutions and religious speech as second class in the United States.” He called Oklahoma’s policy “rank discrimination against religion,” noting that religious schools were not asking for special treatment, just the right to compete on equal footing.

Justice Samuel Alito took that concern a step further. He accused the Oklahoma attorney general’s argument of reflecting “hostility toward particular religions,” particularly Islam. Referring to Drummond’s statements warning that approval of St. Isidore would compel approval of schools run by “reprehensible” sects, Alito said those arguments “reek of hostility” and reflect an “unsavory discriminatory history” in the state’s constitutional framework.

One question that continued to arise in the oral argument centered on whether St. Isidore, as a charter school, is a state actor. If so, then its religious character would trigger establishment clause concerns. But if St. Isidore is a private actor merely contracting with the state, then exclusion based on religion becomes unconstitutional discrimination. “Casting the cloak of state action too broadly risks intruding on individual liberty,” Michael McGinley, attorney for St. Isidore, told the Court.
 
Justice Neil Gorsuch seemed to agree, warning that a ruling against the school could incentivize states to exert more control over charter schools, curbing the innovation those schools were meant to foster. Gorsuch also asked a series of questions to probe whether an educational institution such as St. Isidore could be considered a private organization for the purposes of federal law, but a public institution for the purposes of state law. This probing gives a sense of how Justice Gorsuch, and perhaps the Court, might parse the principles of this case.

The more liberal justices pushed back forcefully. Justice Elena Kagan warned of a “floodgate” effect that could compel states to fund every kind of religious school, including those with doctrines “super different” from mainstream religious or secular values. Justice Sonia Sotomayor bluntly declared: “What you’re saying is the Free Exercise Clause trumps the Establishment Clause.” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued that St. Isidore was asking for a benefit not granted to anyone else – the right to operate a religious public school – although Oklahoma had every right to set up a secular charter system.
 
Chief Justice John Roberts’ few comments suggested that he is weighing the issue with caution. He noted that unlike Trinity Lutheran, Espinoza, or Carson, this case involves “much more comprehensive involvement” by the state in the charter school program. Chief Justice Robert’s terse demeanor may be a clear signal he will be the deciding vote.

Meanwhile, Gregory Garre, representing the state, warned of “uncertainty, confusion, and disruption” if the Court rules in favor of St. Isidore, arguing it would upend the laws of 47 states and the federal charter school program, all of which bar religious charter schools. But that argument overlooks what the First Amendment demands – neutrality, not hostility, toward religion.

General Drummond’s likening of the inclusion of a Catholic school in the state’s charter program to a private takeover of the operations of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, to create a Catholic Highway Patrol, is as unserious as it is inapt. No student would be forced to attend St. Isidore. Families would choose the school, and the state’s funds would follow the child. That’s no different in substance than school voucher programs the Court has repeatedly upheld. The state didn’t design St. Isidore, doesn’t run it, and shouldn’t be allowed to exclude it for being religious.

Protect The 1st hopes the Court recognizes that this case is not about religious favoritism. It is about ending religious exclusion. Once Oklahoma opens the door to private educational providers, it cannot slam that door shut on faith-based institutions. St. Isidore deserves the same opportunity to serve Oklahoma families as any other charter school.

​Sarah Palin’s long-running defamation suit against The New York Times came to an end last week, with a federal jury again ruling against her claims. The jury found, after just two hours of deliberation, that The New York Times had not defamed the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate by mistakenly linking her political action committee’s rhetoric to the mass shooting in Arizona in 2011 that killed six people and severely injured then-Rep. Gabby Giffords.
 
Of course, the media landscape today is fragmented and biased in ways that can frustrate fair public discourse. Outlets across the spectrum cater to their audiences’ ideological appetites, much as newspapers did in the early Republic. This partisanship is far from ideal, but the First Amendment still steadfastly protects it – even when bias tilts against conservatives.
 
In Palin’s case, The New York Times made an undeniable error when it published a 2017 editorial implying a link between the Arizona shooting and a map distributed by Palin’s PAC that contained congressional districts with stylized crosshairs. The mentally ill shooter had, in fact, a long-standing grudge against the congresswoman that predated the map. But mistakes, even careless ones, are not the same as “actual malice,” the standard set in New York Times v. Sullivan for public figures like Palin to prevail in libel suits.
 
The Times moved quickly, issuing a public correction less than 14 hours after publication and clarifying that there was no established connection between Palin’s map and the shooting. James Bennet, then-editorial page editor, tearfully apologized to Palin in court, acknowledging the mistake and his efforts to fix it. These actions matter. Corrections are not only an ethical obligation for journalists; they help defray the risk of defamation liability by showing good faith and a commitment to accuracy.
 
If Palin had prevailed in court, that ruling would have made corrections meaningless. Rather than encouraging media outlets to promptly and transparently acknowledge their errors, a Palin victory would have discouraged self-correction and made the political climate far more hostile to the open debate the First Amendment is designed to protect.
 
There is legitimate debate to be had about whether the Sullivan standard needs adjustment. There is clearly room in for more journalistic accountability in cases in which an untruth leads to the loss of an election or the termination of a contract. Courts and commentators alike have argued whether the line between public and private figures has blurred too much, making it unreasonably difficult for individuals to defend their reputations. Some argue that the precedent could use fine-tuning to address egregious falsehoods that are not caught by today’s high bar. But as this case shows, even high-profile plaintiffs can win under the current doctrine when facts warrant it – as Dominion did against Fox News.
 
Conservatives are right to be concerned about media bias. It is real and often glaring. But the answer cannot be to dismantle the constitutional protections that allow ideas – good, bad, and ugly – to compete in the marketplace. As we have written before, the solution lies not in empowering judges and juries to police editorial decisions, but in cultivating a discerning public that reads broadly and thinks critically.
 
The First Amendment guarantees a free press, not a fair one. Palin’s loss, while surely disappointing to her and her supporters, is a victory for that freedom, and for the principle that honest mistakes must not become fatal mistakes for a free and independent press.

​George Leef on National Review criticizes a federal court in New Hampshire for upholding restrictions on a protest over transgender players at a high school soccer match. He warned the court was accepting the dangerous notion that “speech is violence,” suggesting that this ruling is a broad erosion of First Amendment protections.
 
The case involved parents wearing pink wristbands marked “XX” to protest a transgender athlete’s participation in that game. NR sees this as censorship of symbolic speech. We disagree – and the reasons why are instructive. While we share NR’s vigilance in protecting free expression, not every speech regulation is an assault on liberty. A school official has the right to manage a limited public forum like a school-sponsored event, where viewpoint-neutral rules serve to safeguard students’ rights without silencing legitimate public debate.
 
As the court carefully explained, the soccer field during a school event is just such a limited public forum. In such spaces, schools may impose reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions without engaging in viewpoint discrimination​.
 
The key fact in this case is that the pink wristbands were not an abstract statement of policy, but a comment on a specific student playing in that game. The judge found that the wristband display was not a broad policy statement but a targeted message aimed at that student. As he explained: “Context is everything,” and school officials could reasonably interpret the message as “demeaning, harassing, and psychologically injurious” toward that transgender student​.
 
Critically, the court did not suppress the parents’ views on transgender participation. It enforced neutral rules that barred targeting any individual student at school events. Schools, the judge emphasized, have a “special interest in regulating speech that materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.”
 
This is in keeping with Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), a Vietnam-era case in which the Supreme Court rightly protected silent protest but also recognized that schools may intervene when speech substantially invades the rights of other students. Here, the court relied on concrete evidence, not ideological disagreement, to uphold a narrowly tailored restriction.
 
Free speech advocates must be wary of censorship dressed up as protection. But not every regulation is censorship. Sometimes it reflects the school’s duty to ensure that all students can participate safely and fully in public life. In defending free speech, we must also defend the simple, sensible rules that preserve limited public fora.
 
The First Amendment’s promise endures because it balances robust freedom with careful stewardship. Protecting it requires vigilance – and precision – in telling the difference.

​The Department of Justice has rescinded its policy shielding journalists from being compelled to produce records or testify in federal leak investigations. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo that the move is needed for “safeguarding classified, privileged, and other sensitive information.” The memo also reportedly discusses the danger of leaks that “undermine” the president’s agenda.
 
This is a step in the wrong direction. DOJ’s former policy was a laudable and necessary bulwark against government meddling in the collection and dissemination of free information. It is an own-goal for conservatives feeling wronged by lawfare and official censorship. The confidence of sources to expose secret transgressions made it easier for conservative journalists to reveal the IRS campaign to harass conservative non-profits during the Obama administration, for The New York Post’s to stand by its brave and lonely investigation of Hunter Biden’s laptop, for the independent reporting of Catherine Herridge, and for Matt Taibbi’s exposure of the extent of social media censorship.
 
In recent years, we’ve seen federal intrusion into the records of the AP, CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and even morning raids to confiscate the phones of activist journalists. For decades, journalists have been held in contempt and jailed for refusing to reveal their confidential news sources.
 
As a result, almost every state in the country has a “press shield” law that protects journalists’ sources and notes, with reasonable exceptions. But the federal government has no such law.
 
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press president Bruce Brown said in response to the decision: “Some of the most consequential reporting in U.S. history – from Watergate to warrantless wiretapping after 9/11 – was and continues to be made possible because reporters have been able to protect the identities of confidential sources and uncover and report stories that matter to people across the political spectrum. Strong protections for journalists serve the American public by safeguarding the free flow of information.”
 
That’s why there has been strong bipartisan support in the House of Representatives for the Protect Reporters from Exploitive State Spying (PRESS) Act, passing it twice. The PRESS Act would prohibit federal authorities from spying on journalists through collection of their phone and email records while imposing strict limitations on when the government can require a reporter to give up their sources. It reasonably grants exceptions for emergencies.
 
In the Senate, the PRESS Act has strong bipartisan support, including from Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), as well as Democrats Sen. Ron Wyden (R-OR) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). But it has yet to make it out of committee.
 
Congress must act now. Enshrining protections for journalists is a logical policy fix designed to protect newsgathering, which is our primary means of directing the disinfecting rays of sunlight towards government corruption and malfeasance. Doing so would be consistent with the aims of the founders, who took great pains to ensure the First Amendment had a place of primacy in the Bill of Rights. And it would protect against increasing constitutionally illiterate, illegal acts by government officials against reporters. 
 
General Bondi promises that warrants should “limit the scope of intrusion into potentially protected materials or newsgathering activities.” That is a subjective and potentially politicized assessment. We need a brightline rule. Laws to protect journalists’ notes and sources have worked well across America’s red and blue states. The PRESS Act will work just as well in Washington, D.C.

​In a recent op-ed, Secretary of State Marco Rubio promises to “close the book” on “the weaponization of America’s own government to silence, censor, and suppress the free speech of ordinary Americans.” It’s a laudable objective and one for which Protect The 1st is immensely grateful. But Secretary Rubio and his colleagues should take into account the dangers that arise from the tendency to explore new ways to punish the speech of political opponents and media critics.   
 
Rubio’s choice of venue, The Federalist, was a shrewd one. This publication was one of ten “riskiest online news outlets” identified by the Global Disinformation Index, a British organization funded in part by the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC). The intent was to discourage companies from advertising in these publications and platforms. Rubio announced the closure of the GEC in his editorial.
 
GEC’s efforts, as we’ve written, tried to kill conservative publications. It also constituted a “black box” that allowed federal agencies to filter content moderation requests to social media platforms under the guise of combating “disinformation.” We have no problem with official efforts to identify the propaganda of foreign terrorists and hostile regimes so long as officials are willing to make their case in public. But GEC was un-American, both in conception and in operation. It would be no less concerning if the government was policing liberal outlets like Mother Jones or The Nation.

So, good riddance to the GEC. But just because Secretary Rubio shut down one illiberal outfit doesn’t get the administration off the hook for its own efforts to coerce news outlets and organizations into toeing the official line.
 
This was brought to light in the controversy over 60 Minutes, facing a lawsuit from President Trump over alleged “voter interference” owing to its allegedly duplicitous editing of an interview with candidate Kamala Harris. CBS, the network which airs the show, is owned by Paramount Global – a company currently in merger negotiations with Skydance Media. Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, has urged a settlement with Trump, no doubt to pave the way for eventual FTC approval of the deal. In turn, Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes last night addressed the resignation of executive producer Bill Owens and admitted on his show that it is losing some of its journalistic discretion. By holding a lawsuit over the heads of a major media conglomerate, this administration has successfully exerted control over a formerly independent, and historically vaunted, news program. One may fairly judge CBS to be biased, but it is not the business of government to police speech, biases included.
 
Similarly, the Federal Communications Commission is taking jawboning to its extremes, threatening Comcast (owner of MSNBC) and Warner Bros. Discovery over coverage of the deportation of Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.    
 
The administration would do well to remember that the First Amendment protects the people from government action – not the other way around. Conservatives would do well to continue to dismantle the censorship apparatus, not pioneer new forms that could, once again, be used to throttle conservative speech by the next administration. While we applaud Secretary Rubio for ridding us of the GEC and all its poisoned fruit, everyone who takes the First Amendment seriously should be willing to call out the current administration when it engages in the same sort of harassment it opposes.

​It was reading time at the U.S. Supreme Court today, though the oral argument in Mahmoud v. Taylor did not end with milk, cookies, and a nap. It did indicate, however, a likely victory for the plaintiffs.

Much of today’s oral argument centered around the storybooks included in the pre-K to 6th grade curriculum in Montgomery County schools. One such storybook, Prince & Knight, factored into the discussion.

Here’s a summary of that book written for children ages 4 to 8: Once upon a time, there was a prince who was urged by his royal parents to visit neighboring kingdoms to find a suitable bride. But the prince did not find the woman he loved. While on his journey, the prince was informed that a dragon was attacking his kingdom. He joined forces with a dashing knight, who used his shield to blind the monster. This allowed the prince to successfully ensnare the dragon. When the prince tripped, the knight came to his rescue and caught him in his arms. That’s when the prince realized that he was, in fact, in love. And soon prince and knight were warmly received into the kingdom, which joyfully celebrated their royal wedding.

Another such book, Love Violet, tells the story of a girl who harbors a secret crush for another girl in her class.

In the eyes of many, Prince & Knight and Love Violet spin tales that help children to grow up with respect and acceptance. In the eyes of families that are adherents of great world religions – from Roman Catholicism to Christian evangelicalism, to Islam and Orthodox Judaism – these stories indoctrinate children into celebrating relationships that their religions reject as sinful. Forcing this instruction, therefore, is a violation of the First Amendment rights of the parents’ free exercise of religion.

No one in this case is seeking suppression of these books and teachings. Religious parents of Montgomery County school children are merely seeking the right to opt out their children from the books and its related curriculum. The Montgomery County school board at first allowed such opt-outs, then denied them, claiming that allowing them would be impractical to manage. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the school board’s decision, finding that “simply hearing about other views does not necessarily exert pressure to believe or act differently than one’s religious faith requires.”

In today’s oral argument, Justice Samuel Alito pushed back on that notion. Given that these books are read to children as young as age four, he said many will lack the faculties to dispute or disagree with what they are being told.

“I don’t think anybody can read that and say, ‘Well, this is just telling children that there are occasions when men marry other men,” said Justice Alito. “It has a clear moral message, and it may be a good message. It’s just a message that a lot of religious people disagree with.”

Justice Elena Kagan acknowledged that what some Montgomery County principals had flagged – regardless of gender, the storybooks’ focus on romantic relationships was a questionable choice for children as young as four. “I too, was struck by these young kids picture books and, on matters concerning sexuality, I suspect there are a lot of non-religious parents who weren’t all that thrilled about this.”

But Justice Kagan stuck to the notion that if opt-outs are allowed in this instance, they will have to be allowed for a host of other objections, perhaps even to the teaching of evolution in biology class. Justice Kagan said: “Once we articulate a rule like that, it would be like opt-outs for everyone.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s questions centered around the point that an opt-out rule would “constitutionalize” local decisions on curricula best left to the communities. “Maybe in one community, one set of values, these books are fine, but in another community with a different set of values, they’re not,” she said.

Justice Alito returned to the point that the plaintiffs were not asking that the books be removed. “What’s the big deal about allowing them to opt out?” he asked. “I am not understanding why it’s not feasible,” said Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Overall, the tone and tenor of today’s oral argument indicates a solid majority will come down on the side of observing the right of religious parents to opt-out their children.

Two minutes into this two-and-a-half hour-long hearing, Eric Baxter of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents the parents, drew on Protect The 1st’s own amicus brief for his presentation. In that brief, Protect The 1st declared: “Properly understood, the First Amendment forbids the government from imposing such coercive choices on parents as a precondition to participating in a public benefit, including public education.”
​
Though we rarely make predictions about how the Court will decide, we believe that will be the likely stance the Court majority will take.

​Many of the great warriors of history had beards. In the modern era, however, clean-shaven faces became the hallmark of the modern military. This is a problem for American men of the Sikh faith, who are forbidden to shave. Many Jewish and Muslim men are similarly required to maintain beards as an outward sign of their faithfulness.
 
In 2021, Edmund Di Liscia, a Hasidic Jew assigned to the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, testified before a federal judge that his beard is “a religious requirement and an expression of obedience and fidelity to God.” For years, many Americans adherents of several faiths were forced to choose between expulsion from military service or to violate their most closely held religious beliefs.
 
Thanks to the good work of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, federal courts have stayed military orders to force religiously observant men to shave off their beards. The military has also shown flexibility, allowing religious accommodation for servicemen who demonstrate the sincerity of their faith and are willing to accept limitations on their assignments.
 
This tolerance is now at risk. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently ordered the Pentagon to conduct a review of military standards related to health and appearance across the services. His memo pointedly noted that this review “includes but is not limited to beards.”
 
It is understandable – even commendable – that Secretary Hegseth wants to level up the fitness and appearance requirements of the services. But we hope that in this review, a line is drawn to protect beards as expressions of faith.
 
The Trump administration has shown great sensitivity to protecting religious liberty, including the establishment of a White House Faith Office to work with the Justice Department to protect the freedom of religious expression. As the Pentagon drafts new rules, the religious expression of Americans in uniform should also be respected.

​Kansas lawmakers have overridden Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto to enact a new law defending the rights of religious foster and adoptive parents. Effective immediately, the state can no longer deny licenses to families simply because they won’t affirm gender ideology or same-sex relationships. The law stops bureaucrats from turning personal belief into a disqualifier, and it sends a clear signal: faith-based convictions don’t bar you from opening your home to a child in need.

This victory for religious liberty won’t make headlines in major media, but it should. It directly answers a troubling trend where belief in traditional marriage or gender roles becomes an automatic disqualifier for otherwise qualified parents.

Kansas is an encouraging story, for similar religious discrimination against adoptive parents is happening around the country. In Massachusetts, Mike and Kitty Burke – a Catholic couple with years of experience caring for children – were denied the chance to foster because they wouldn’t recite the state’s preferred catechism on sex and identity. “Their faith is not supportive and neither are they,” wrote a social worker, as if belief in Christian doctrine was evidence of neglect.

That mindset is spreading. Oregon, Vermont, and other states are testing policies that require prospective foster parents to parrot gender orthodoxy before they can bring a child into their home. These policies don’t protect kids – they punish adults with unapproved beliefs. More to the point, these policies violate the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment. The state cannot make religious adherence a liability for civic participation. It cannot force a person to say what they do not believe. And it cannot close the door on loving homes simply because a couple affirms, as generations have, traditional religious beliefs.

That’s what makes Kansas so important. It stops the government from forcing people to either lie or lose out for holding traditional religious beliefs. Opponents say the bill opens the door to discrimination. It merely allows people to hold different beliefs without punishment. That’s not discrimination – that’s pluralism. You might disagree with traditional views on sexuality. But we all have a stake in this debate: A society that can’t handle differing views on sexuality has already lost its way.

There’s an old joke about a couple that was so progressive that they adopted a gay baby. Today, we’re watching the inverse: systems so rigidly ideological they’ll leave kids in hospitals and public homes rather than place them with a conservative family.
​
Kansas said no.

​A bill moving through the Illinois legislature has sparked fierce opposition from parents, educators, and civil liberties advocates across the state. Known as the “Homeschool Act,” House Bill 2827 would require families to register their homeschool with local districts, hand over teaching materials upon demand, and face criminal charges for paperwork violations. Critics say it’s not about oversight – it’s about control.
 
Registration isn’t just a formality. It would empower the state to monitor, investigate, and potentially prosecute families who choose to educate at home. Under HB 2827, if parents don’t file the required form within ten days, their children are labeled truant, and the parents could face jail time. That registration triggers new powers for school districts and truancy officers: they could demand educational portfolios, interrogate children without parental presence, and determine whether the family’s curriculum, potentially including religious content, is acceptable. It invites a regime of constant oversight, not based on any wrongdoing, but simply because a family chose to homeschool.
 
Lawmakers like Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Democrat, are sounding alarms. He called the bill a “pipeline to the criminal justice system for parents.” Others warn it would overwhelm child welfare agencies without helping at-risk children.
 
Backers point to cases of abuse in homeschool settings, but those tragedies were already known to state authorities. This bill doesn’t solve system failures. It punishes law-abiding families instead.
 
The opposition isn’t coming from one political camp. Tens of thousands of witness slips were filed. Between 5,000 and 8,000 people showed up at the state capitol. Homeschooling advocates point out that today’s homeschoolers come from across the political and socioeconomic spectrum, black, white, Republican, Democrat, low-income, and post-COVID converts. The message is simple: Our freedom is not up for negotiation.
 
Perhaps it’s no surprise that 33 counties in Illinois have voted to explore breaking away from the state. Proposals like HB 2827 only deepen the divide between urban lawmakers and rural families who feel increasingly sidelined and targeted.
 
HB 2827 is a line in the sand. Either lawmakers reject this overreach, or they invite a broader erosion of parental rights and educational freedom. The First Amendment demands more than lip service. This bill must be stopped.

Imagine you run a tax-exempt charity that houses, feeds, and cares for the poor and the homeless, or perhaps educates children from low-income families. You have the resources to operate your charity through the kindness of your donors. You also are grateful that your tax-exempt status helps you stretch those donor dollars for your social mission.

Then one day you begin to receive demands from the government to certify compliance with myriad federal regulations. The cost of painstakingly documenting compliance would make a huge dent in your budget. Worse, if you are found to be out of compliance with the bureaucracy’s elaborate standards, your tax-exempt status will be revoked.

This is the implied threat of the 2022 rulings by two federal district courts that held that the tax-exempt status of charities means that they should be considered recipients of federal financial assistance. One of these cases, Buettner-Hartsoe v. Baltimore Lutheran High School Association d/b/a Concordia Preparatory School, went to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Last year, the Fourth reversed the lower court’s ruling:

“Tax exemption is not ‘Federal financial assistance.’ This is not a novel concept. Indeed, since Title IX’s inception over fifty years ago, it has never been applied to organizations based solely on their tax-exempt status. And for good reason … Tax exemption, however, is the withholding of a tax burden, rather than the affirmative grant of funds. Thus, tax-exemption is not ‘Federal financial assistance.’”

You might brush your hands and say, ‘all well and good and that is that!’ But in American law these days, that is never that. The appetite for government control is as strong as ever. All it takes is the right case and the right judge to set this precedent on its ear and bind charities across the land to burdensome regulation.

We have certainly seen at the state level, from Wisconsin to Maine to California – a desire by regulators to treat charities, especially religious-based charities, in discriminatory ways. This impulse was occasionally on display during the previous administration in regulatory lurches toward increasing government control of charities.

To forestall this movement once and for all, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) and Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) have introduced the Safeguarding Charity Act to clarify that tax-exempt organizations should not be treated as recipients of federal financial assistance.

“Tax-exempt status is not the same as receiving federal funding, and it should be not used as political leverage against the nonprofits that feed, clothe, house, and counsel those in need in Oklahoma and across the nation,” Sen. Lankford said. “We should be focused on enabling the work of these organizations – not burdening them with unnecessary and costly federal requirements.”

“Radical judges should not have the authority to twist federal law and force religious institutions to choose between their convictions and their compliance,” Rep. Steube said. “This bill is about protecting churches, religious schools, and charities from federal overreach.”
​
Though prior versions of this bill failed to pass, the stars may be lining up for the 119th Congress to pass this bill and to put this question to rest for all time.

​Bangor, Michigan, population 2,113, bills itself as “The Gateway to the Lake.” But the town is anything but laid back lately. Local government officials are speaking loud and clear – prosecutions will continue until morale improves.
 
In January, the Bangor City Council unanimously approved a motion to allow “City Attorney (Scott) Graham to file charges with the court against all parties involved in statements that have caused harm to the city.”
 
The controversy apparently stems from accusations that Bangor resident Justin Weber is receiving two paychecks by virtue of his dual role as city manager and chief of police. City officials deny that this is happening. “This is America,” Bangor Mayor Lynne Farmer said. “You’re free to have your own opinion. But in America, you are not free, under the First Amendment, to keep repeating something that’s false that you knowingly know is.”
 
The city is merely targeting “known untruths,” she said. 
 
Why do so many Americans these days in positions of authority lack an understanding of the First Amendment? Mayor Farmer’s statement should be in law school textbooks as a classic example of getting the First Amendment wrong. As the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression wrote in a letter to the city, “The First Amendment flatly prohibits government entities from bringing defamation actions, even against speakers who make knowingly false statements.” If it didn’t, as the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1972, “every criticism of public expenditure, policy, management or conduct of public affairs would place its utterer in jeopardy. It is difficult to imagine anything more destructive of democratic government than the power in the hands of a corrupt government to stifle all opposition by free use of the public treasury to silence critics by suit.”
 
If this standard were overturned, any bureaucrat could decide what is truth and a “known untruth.” If Bangor city officials want redress, they can always file a defamation lawsuit for themselves. But they cannot have the city lean on their critics for them.
 
The Bangor City Council should revoke Graham’s authority to bring suits against its citizens for speaking their mind. Not long ago, Police Chief Weber was caught on camera calling upset residents “pansies.” It should be enough to dismiss that slur as offensive. But if the city council has its way, the prosecutor could go after the police chief because humans, after all, aren’t flowers; therefore, that characterization is knowingly false. Or we could all just take a civics refresher and step away from the ledge.  

On Thursday, in a rare sign of political health, the House managed to squeak out a budget resolution, 216-214. Producing this blueprint was a monumental lift for the Republicans’ razor-thin majority, but they achieved it just the same. Big challenges remain. In coming weeks, the majority in Congress must now agree on balancing the budgetary costs of President Trump’s proposed tax cuts against spending in defense, border control, and other major priorities.
 
Amid these gigantic programs, there is a smaller one that must not hit the cutting room floor – the well-being of children and the future of American education. Congress should make sure that two relatively small items, the Educational Choice for Children Act and the Student Empowerment Act, are kept in the coming budget reconciliation bill.
 
Urgent action is needed to address the nation’s near-catastrophic, not-very-good report card on education. The National Assessment of Educational Progress tests American students every two years. It found that the average reading scores for fourth- and eighth-grade students fell by 2 points since 2022. Math proficiency for fourth graders fell by three percent from 2019. For American eighth graders, it fell by a whopping 9 percent. There are bright spots, with improvement for students in the top tier of performance. Overall, American education saw a continuation of a decline that preceded the pandemic.
 
Clearly, traditional public-school systems in many parts of the United States need help. America’s educational mediocrity has been a crisis since the 1980s, although mediocrity might be an improvement over current performance in some school districts. A large body of research shows that educational choice can help improve the performance of public schools, as well as students overall. We’ve previously reported that economics professor William Alexander Salter of Texas Tech University has demonstrated that on the question of the impact of school choice: “Out of 28 studies that explore this question, 25 found that school choice improves educational attainment in traditional school systems. In terms of social-scientific validity, that’s a slam dunk.”

• The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) would improve both public and private schools in this way, providing tax credits for charitable donations to expand choices in quality education. Introduced by Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE), Rep. Burgess Owen (R-UT) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the ECCA permits tax-free private donations to help students, especially low-income ones, to take advantage of quality private education, including both secular and religious schools.

The ECCA offers $10 billion in tax credits to be divided among the states, surely an amount that can fit into this budget. Speaking to the need for this bill, Sen. Cassidy said: “More freedom empowers parents and allows American children to thrive in school.”
​

• The Student Empowerment Act, sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK) would expand school choice by increasing the availability of 529 Education Savings Plans to include not only K-12 elementary and secondary school tuition, but also many K-12 educational expenses for public, private, and homeschool students.

“The Student Empowerment Act is commonsense legislation that will expand access to 529 savings accounts and empower American families to best meet their children’s learning needs,” Sen. Cruz said.
 
Both programs would respect American pluralism, allowing parents to make choices for their children and to express their values across generations by choosing secular or religious schools consistent with broader First Amendment protections. Amid hundreds of billions of dollars spent on other programs, these two bills are small but impactful. Kept in the budget for the president to sign, the ECCA and Student Empowerment Act will generate benefits that will resonate for the rest of the century.

​The U.S. Supreme Court will soon weigh in on Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case that could reshape the boundaries of parental rights in public education. At stake is a basic but powerful question: Can the state force parents to expose their children to teachings that contradict their deepest moral and religious beliefs? A win for the parents wouldn’t just vindicate religious freedom – it could also throw a lifeline to secular and non-Christian families in red states, where public school curricula are starting to blur the line between education and religious endorsement.

In Montgomery County, Maryland, parents were initially allowed to opt out of new “LGBTQ+-inclusive” texts introduced in 2022. These included books such as Pride Puppy, with some curricula introducing drag queens and leather fetish gear to pre-K students. Born Ready presents gender transition as a personal decision that doesn’t need to “make sense.” Then the school board reversed course, eliminating the opt-out and mandating full participation, even for families whose religious teachings directly conflict with these lessons.

Protect The 1st filed an amicus brief urging the Court to recognize this as a violation of the Free Exercise Clause. This case echoes the foundational rulings in Pierce v. Society of Sisters and Wisconsin v. Yoder, in which the Court affirmed that the right to direct a child’s moral and religious upbringing rests with the family – not the state.

What is often missed in media commentary is how a win in Mahmoud would also defend secular families and minority faiths in red states from forced exposure to Christian-centric teachings. Consider Texas. The state’s new Bluebonnet Learning curriculum is approved for adoption in 2025 and incentivized with $60 per student. While it claims to be academically neutral, watchdog groups have documented how some lessons treat the Bible as literal history and ask students to repeat phrases from Genesis​.

Texas Education Agency officials insist these materials are educational, not devotional, and that schools may use or omit parts as they see fit. But once a district accepts this curriculum, parents will be allowed no opt-out for their children. That’s cold comfort to Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or secular families in districts that decide to lean hard into biblical framing. What’s being described as “contextual” exposure often amounts to uncritical celebration of one religious tradition. At minimum, there is no need to push this curriculum without parental opt-outs for their children.

We ardently agree that you cannot teach American history without appreciating the role of religion, from the Pilgrims to the civil rights era. But you can – and must – do it without crossing the line into indoctrination. The same principle that protects a Muslim family in Maryland from state-imposed gender ideology also protects a secular family in Texas from state-imposed Christianity.
​
A ruling in favor of the Mahmoud plaintiffs won’t just be a win for religious liberty. It’ll be a win for pluralism – ensuring that no matter where you live or what you believe, the public school system doesn’t get to decide what your child’s faith tradition will be.