Oral arguments began in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday in a case determining whether a Maryland county can authorize children attending public schools to vote for school board.
Filed by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) in March 2021, the lawsuit in question contends that Howard County’s allowance of 6th-11th graders to elect a full voting student member of the locality’s board of education constitutes a direct violation of the First and 14th Amendments. According to a PILF-produced factsheet summarizing the case, the Howard County Board of Education consists of eight members, two of whom are elected “at large” and five by “residential districts.” The board’s final position is reserved for a student “elected only by students attending public schools from grades 6th through 11th.”
As noted in PILF’s suit, however, students attending religious schools or homeschooled are not permitted to vote in the race, which the legal group says violates the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. The contest was filed on behalf of Howard County residents William Holland, Lisa Kim, and Kim’s son, the latter of whom was a 6th-grade student attending a religious school at the time of the lawsuit’s filing.
“Defendant Howard County Board of Education (‘Board’) is operating a system of election and governance that violates the Fourteenth and First Amendment by allowing children only attending public schools, but not religious schools, to vote for public officials; allocating political power improperly to minors; and diluting and causing a malapportionment of political power,” the suit
