The FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) and Homeschooling

I was prompted to write this when I read this month’s excellent cover story on the FLDS in the National Geographic.  I’m sure most of my readers recall the saga that played out on national television in 2008 when the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services removed 437 children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, TX after receiving what turned out to be a hoax phone call alleging widespread sexual abuse there by FLDS men.  This seizure led to the largest child custody battle in U.S. history, which resulted in the eventual return of all the children to the compound when the Third Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the families. 

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Yuracko on Regulating Homeschooling

This post reviews Kimberly A. Yuracko, “Education off the Grid: Constitutional Constraints on Homeschooling” in California Law Review 96, no. 1 (Feb. 2008): 123-184.

Yuracko, a law professor at Northwestern University whose work deals primarily with antidiscrimination law, here makes the case that state statutes and the Equal Protection clause of the U.S. Constitution require that states have a responsibility to regulate homeschooling in certain respects. 

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