Caleb MacDonald, Preserving Identity: Comparison of Minorities’ Rights to Educate Children in France and the United States, 42 Wis. Int'l L.J. 627 (2025).
To what extent parents should control their child’s education is a hotly debated issue. Some view campaigns for parental rights as a detraction from the quality of public school education. Others worry that children will be harmed by a parent’s failure to meet educational standards, or by a desire to indoctrinate children with perspectives many find repulsive. Additionally, school attendance can help children develop socially, and attendance in public schools provides an opportunity for schools to train children on virtues that benefit democratic societies. But, as majoritarian governments tighten their grip on political levers, individual rights protections become even more necessary to protect minority groups from forced assimilation into the majority perspective.
This Comment considers parental rights regarding the education of their children, focusing specifically on homeschooling as one tool available to minority parents to protect their children from assimilation into the majority perspective. This Comment begins by comparing recent legislation in France and recently enacted legislation in various American states, and then examines these laws in the context of each nation’s legal scheme before concluding that each nation provides minority parents a source of protection for their rights that is not available in the other nation. For example, parents in France may seek a right to homeschool under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights because France incorporates international treaties into its domestic law. The United States does not. However, the United States’ judiciary, unlike the judiciary in France, can identify and protect rights under the nation’s constitution. By protecting parental rights through the judiciary, the United States ensures that the rights of minority groups are insulated from the winds of political change. The United States Supreme Court can do this by applying a standard of intermediate scrutiny to state efforts to restrict parental rights in education.
