When an 8-year-old boy wandered off
without permission to browse the neighborhood dollar store a few days before Christmas, he set off a legal battle that tested our
nation’s highest protections for the home and
family. With HSLDA’s help, his parents won
that struggle.
The facts of the case were never in dispute.
After playing outside, the boy disobeyed
family rules and went on his own to the
shopping center near the family’s Texas
home. Someone there reported him to the
police, who then returned the boy to his parents.
Almost two weeks later, a Texas Department of Family and Protective Services
(DFPS) investigator came to the family’s
home. She wanted to enter the house to
inspect living conditions and interview all
five of the family’s children. The parents said
they had dealt appropriately with the situation by talking to their son about what he’d
done wrong and grounding him.
They declined to let the investigator into the
home.
Neither dangerous nor imminent
At this point the case escalated into the kind
of assault on constitutional rights that HSLDA
has fought against for 40 years.
Two months after the boy’s trip to the dollar
store, a DFPS attorney obtained an emergency
court order allowing an investigator to enter
the home despite the parents’ objection. He
argued that the court needed to act without
first holding a hearing. And he did so without providing any notice to the parents, who were never given an opportunity to tell the judge their side of the story.
The DFPS attorney wrote that “the child is in
imminent danger of being subjected to aggravated circumstances.”
There were two problems with this assertion.
First, no evidence existed to show the children
faced harm. Second, the DFPS attorney didn’t
ask for the court order until late February—nearly two months after the DFPS launched
the investigation. Such a delay calls into question the urgency of the situation.
After learning of the court order, the family
contacted HSLDA for help. By the next day, our
attorneys were taking action in Texas courts.
Within a week, we persuaded the Texas
Court of Appeals to delay the search order and
set a deadline for DFPS to justify its desire to search the family’s home. A few days later, DFPS
asked the court to dismiss the case.
Holding officials accountable
In a discussion with HSLDA Founder and Board
Chairman Michael Farris on a recent podcast,
Mason said success in this case stemmed from our
longtime defense of Fourth Amendment rights.
“HSLDA started doing this kind of case a long time ago,” Mason said.
“We help families navigate these complicated and disconcerting situations by making state investigators follow the constitutional rules,” he
added.
Farris and Mason agreed that this aspect of HSLDA’s mission is crucial.
Homeschool families must be guarded against what the Constitution
calls “unreasonable searches and seizures” so that children feel safe in
their homes and do not lose trust in caring adults and other authorities.
Government agents who violate the sanctity of the home can severely
disrupt both aspects of a child’s psyche.
Farris said children face a heightened risk of trauma when they are
isolated by investigators for inspection for possible abuse—often on the
basis of flimsy evidence, or no evidence at all.
These inspections sometimes include strip searches, which can
violate children’s sense of privacy and safety in longstanding ways.
“It’s not good for children,” Farris said. “It’s unnecessary. And it’s
unconstitutional.”
HSLDA remains committed to protecting homeschool families by
reminding them of their rights and by holding officials accountable.
