This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, May 8th, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown.

When Harvard magazine presented a faculty member's case against homeschooling. It characterized homeschooling

itself as authoritarian and presented homeschooling parents as overwhelmingly white and

religious.

Carrie McDonald, author of the book Unschooled, says the case falls apart under scrutiny.

The Harvard magazine article was an interview with Elizabeth Bartholette, who's a long time

Harvard Law School professor, it really accentuated many of her

points in her much broader Arizona law review article that was also published recently and I think one of the more alarming parts

of the Arizona Law Review article

is simply the attack on individual freedom,

particularly going after current interpretations of the US Constitution.

She says that the US Constitution is quote,

outdated and inadequate and argues against this sort of negative rights theory that individuals are free from

state intervention and instead she advocates for positive rights where the government grants rights and allows for much more intervention

into people's lives, in particular, into the lives of families and children.

So there's a longstanding precedent with regard to parents and parents ability to educate their

own children according to their own dictates of either their

faith or their beliefs or simply what they want their children to learn.

And does she engage with that at all?

Right, so you're right that the courts have upheld what is known as the liberty interest of parents to care for and

educate their children how they see fit.

...