RFI recently joined amicus briefs in two consolidated cases in the Michigan Supreme Court involving termination of parental rights, an extraordinary measure that courts should consider only as a last resort. This week the state’s high court declined to review the cases, but a dissenting judge cited our brief to argue that it should have overturned the lower courts’ termination orders.

RFI’s brief argued:

The rights of parents and children to a relationship with each other are at their apex when the state seeks to completely sever the bonds between them. A termination of parental rights does far more than interfere with the fundamental constitutional right of family integrity—it extinguishes it. (5)

…

[T]here is also broad consensus that protecting children from harm is a state interest of the gravest importance. The critical question raised in this case is when the state interest in protecting children from harm justifies permanently severing family relationships. (6)

The brief then urged the Court:

to make clear that as a fundamental right, family integrity is unquestionably subject to strict scrutiny, and to explain the required inquiry. Family relationships can be permanently extinguished only when (1) that action would prevent harm to a child, and (2) a less extreme measure is not available. Anything less violates the constitutional rights of both parents and children. (7)

In these consolidated cases, Michigan lower courts had terminated the parental rights of parents without considering an alternative arrangement, such as a custody order, that would have accounted for the welfare of their children while stopping short of completely severing the parent-child relationships.

RFI’s amicus brief, led by New York University Law School’s Family Defense Clinic, was notable in that it was joined by a range of conservative and progressive groups. The aim of the brief was to encourage the court to adopt a strict scrutiny standard for orders in child neglect cases affecting the parent-child relationship. In other words, we argued, such orders should be tailored to impinge on that relationship only to the extent necessary to protect the well-being of the child. 

RFI’s argument in this case parallels arguments we have made on behalf of Muslim and Christian parents with children in Montgomery County, Maryland public schools. There the question of whether strict scrutiny applies to violations of parental rights has emerged in the context of government action in the form of school policies and instruction that promote “sexual orientation and gender identity” ideology.

In the Michigan cases, although the Court declined to hear them, one of the dissenting judges favorably mentioned RFI’s brief, noting:

Common human experience as well as the briefing this Court received from amici demonstrate that children generally benefit from relationships with their biological parents, even if limitations on the parent-child relationship are warranted. (Read the judge’s opinion here.)

Under the leadership of Ismail Royer, RFI has stepped in to support parental rights by equipping parents and community leaders, engaging state and local policymakers, and filing amicus briefs in pertinent cases in Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and California. The intersection of parental rights and religious freedom is critical, and it is often the case that upholding the former is a necessary component of defending the latter in America today.