Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) has quietly removed two controversial books from its mandatory reading list for elementary school students.

One of the books, “Pride Puppy,” was part of a language arts curriculum that the Maryland school district added last year to introduce “LGBTQ” concepts to children from kindergarten through high school. MCPS initially gave parents the right to opt their children out of the instruction but then changed course, claiming that requiring all children to receive the lessons furthered its mission of “inclusion.”

MCPS’s decision to mandate the “LGBTQ” lessons triggered a series of massive protests at school board meetings by Muslim and Christian parents who demanded the district restore the “opt out” option. A group of those parents, represented by the Becket Fund, then filed a lawsuit in federal court arguing that MCPS’s action violated their First Amendment right to the free exercise of their religion and their fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children.

A spokesperson for MCPS says it removed the two books because they “required additional vocabulary and concept explanations,” rendering them “less effective teaching tools.” However, the school district has refused to provide its internal evaluation that led to their removal. And when the “inclusive” curriculum was first introduced, a group of MCPS elementary school principals sent a letter to school district leaders with concerns that the books were inappropriately teaching young students about “sexual orientation and gender identity.”

RFI’s Ismail Royer was interviewed by WJLA, ABC’s Washington, D.C. affiliate, about MCPS’s decision to remove “Pride Puppy” from the mandatory curriculum. Royer said:

I appreciate that Montgomery County Public Schools would take this move. This is an example of the needle beginning to come back toward the center, toward normalcy after a period of ideological, frankly, extremism in the leadership of Montgomery County Public Schools.

A video of the segment, including Royer’s interview, is available here.

RFI has been supporting the parents on the ground as well as in court. Earlier this month, RFI filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Supreme Court in support of the parents’ appeal of the appellate court’s denial of their motion for a restraining order. A ruling in favor of that restraining order would require MCPS to restore the opt-out option. RFI’s brief argues that when the government forces students to participate in sex and “gender” education that undermines the parent’s guidance and instructions, it imposes an unconstitutional burden on parents’ religious freedom and the exercise of their fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children.