Parental Rights in Education after Mahmoud v. Taylor: Legal and Cultural Assessments

Date

January 22, 2026

Time

12:45 pm - 3:30 pm

Location

  • AEI Auditorium
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Speakers

Speaker

  • Elizabeth R. Kirk
    Elizabeth R. Kirk Director of the Center for Law & the Human Person
    Elizabeth R. Kirk
    Elizabeth R. Kirk
    Director of the Center for Law & the Human Person

    Elizabeth R. Kirk is an Assistant Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Law and the Human Person at the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America. Her scholarship focuses on law and the family, including issues such as parental rights, reproductive technologies, abortion jurisprudence, child welfare, and adoption. Her work has been published by the Institute for Family Studies, Humanum, Public Discourse, First Things, the Texas Review of Law & Politics, and the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics, and Public Policy (forthcoming).

    From 2018 to 2020, she served as Director and Kowalski Chair of Catholic Thought at the Institute for Faith and Culture at the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas.

About the Event

In the 2025 Supreme Court case Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Court ruled that parents do not surrender their authority to direct the religious upbringing of their children in public school. Rather, parents retain that traditional authority as a necessary society independent of the state, even as democratically accountable school boards retain their authority over educational curriculum.

The implications of Mahmoud’s landmark restoration of parental religious authority—after a half century of marginalization in the public school context—are manifold. Please join AEI and Catholic University of America’s Center for Law and the Human Person for two panel conversations moderated by AEI’s William Haun on Mahmoud’s legal grounds and implications for the First Amendment and broader legal and cultural debates about the relationship between the family, the state, and the common good.

Submit questions to Elissabeth.Buckles@aei.org or on X with #MahmoudAEI.

If you are unable to attend in person, a video livestream will be made available on the AEI page.

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Hourly Schedule

12:30 PM
Registration Opens and Lunch Available
12:45 PM
Opening Remarks and Introduction
Speakers:
William Haun
12:50 PM
Panel I: Mahmoud v. Taylor and Legal Protections for Parental Rights in Education
Speakers:
Elizabeth R. Kirk, Eric Baxter, Helen M. Alvaré, William Haun
1:50 PM
Q&A
2:05 PM
Break
2:15 PM
Panel II: Mahmoud v. Taylor and Cultural Implications for Parental Rights in Education
Speakers:
Melissa Moschella, Sarah Gustafson, Timothy P. Carney, William Haun
3:15 PM
Q&A
3:30 PM
Adjournment
William Haun
Nonresident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Elizabeth R. Kirk
Elizabeth R. Kirk
Director of the Center for Law & the Human Person
Elizabeth R. Kirk is an Assistant Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Law and the Human Person at the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America. Her scholarship focuses on law and the family, including issues such as parental rights, reproductive technologies, abortion jurisprudence, child welfare, and adoption. Her work has been published by the Institute for Family Studies, Humanum, Public Discourse, First Things, the Texas Review of Law & Politics, and the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics, and Public Policy (forthcoming). From 2018 to 2020, she served as Director and Kowalski Chair of Catholic Thought at the Institute for Faith and Culture at the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas.
Eric Baxter
Vice President, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Helen M. Alvaré
Helen M. Alvaré
Robert A. Levy Endowed Chair in Law and Liberty
Helen Alvaré is the Robert A. Levy Endowed Chair in Law and Liberty at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where she teaches Family Law, Law and Religion, and Property Law. She publishes on matters concerning marriage, parenting, non-marital households, and the First Amendment religion clauses. She is faculty advisor to the law school’s Civil Rights Law Journal, and the Latino/a Law Student Association, a Member of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life (Vatican City), a board member of Catholic Relief Services, a member of the Executive Committee of the AALS’ Section on Law and Religion, and an ABC news consultant. She cooperates with the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations as a speaker and a delegate to various United Nations conferences concerning women and the family.
Melissa Moschella
Melissa Moschella
Professor of the Practice, Philosophy
Melissa Moschella is a philosopher whose work spans the fields of ethics, political philosophy, and law. Her areas of special expertise include natural law theory, biomedical ethics, and the family (especially parental rights).
Sarah Gustafson
Assistant Professor, Catholic University of America
Timothy P. Carney
Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

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Parental Rights in Education after Mahmoud v. Taylor: Legal and Cultural Assessments