On Tuesday, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves released his Fiscal Year 2024 Executive Budget Recommendation, which notes some of his top priorities. Some of the priorities include eliminating the income tax, lowering healthcare costs, and giving Mississippi children a first-rate education.
Among the Governor’s proposals in the FY 2024 EBR, Reeves called for Mississippi to establish a Parents’ Bill of Rights that recognizes parental authority over their children’s lives and education.
Governor Reeves said that when it comes to education, it is the state of Mississippi who answers to parents, not vice versa.
“In Mississippi, we believe it is parents who have the final say in their child’s education, not the state,” Reeves said. “As I stated in my 2022 State of the State address, it is shocking to me that in some corners of the country, the basic right of parents to determine their child’s education is ignored. Parents’ voices should not just be heard, it should be sought. It should reign. As long as I’m governor, it always will.”
The Mississippi Governor stated that too many school districts across the country have usurped the role of parents and decreed that they will impose new controversial, experimental social science experiments on children over the objections of parents.
“On decisions surrounding the usage of names, pronouns, or health matters, schools have an obligation to adhere to the will of parents,” Reeves continued. “It is parents who have the ultimate responsibility for raising their children as they see fit. There is no place in our schools for policies that force students or teachers to refer to a child by a name or pronoun that fails to correspond with the biological sex on the child’s official record.”
Governor Reeves said he believes it to be entirely antithetical to the principles of the America’s founding and constitutional rights for any government entity, including a public school, to infringe upon the sincerely held religious beliefs of parents, students, or teachers.
“The First Amendment enshrines free speech and religious freedom as fundamentally protected rights,” Reeves said. “I refuse to allow our schools to fall prey to the illiberal trend in which individuals are forced to affirm ideas or an ideology that runs counter to their personal beliefs. Our schools are meant to provide an education. In Mississippi, we’ll focus on the fundamentals like math, science, civics, reading, and writing.”
“In the upcoming session, the Mississippi Legislature should establish a Parents’ Bill of Rights that recognizes parental authority over their children’s lives and education,” Reeves concluded.