Parents ask Supreme Court to hear case on Calif. religious education ban

August 25, 2026

A group of parents have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case aimed at ending a California charter school policy banning the inclusion of religious materials in homeschool study programs.

The Christian Post reports that the First Liberty Institute, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and King & Spalding LLP filed a petition last week on behalf of three families — John and Breanna Woolard, Hector and Diana Gonzales, and Carrie Dodson — in the case of John Woolard, et al. v. Tony Thurmond et al.

The issue stems from whether a California policy can allow charter schools to deny parents funding and academic credit for educational materials that are considered religious in nature.

According to the petition, “The charter schools overseeing petitioners’ independent-study programs rejected the use of works by William Penn and Jonathan Edwards because of their ‘religious content,’”

The petition also states: “They rejected a grammar exercise using the sentence ‘God sends the rain to help plants grow’ because the school ‘can’t accept any work sample with any religious wording on it.’”

In a statement last week, First Liberty Institute Executive General Counsel Hiram Sasser referred to previous decisions that had been used to wrongfully justify “the state’s religious discrimination.”

Sasser added, “Parents should not be punished for choosing quality religious curriculum meeting the state’s standard that they teach to their own children in their own home just because it’s religious.”

According to the Christian Post, the complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, argued that the parents should be allowed to include Christian instruction in their study program.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to resume its closed-door conferences to consider which cases to hear beginning Sept. 28, with its new term opening Oct. 5.

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