What's to limit this policy in the future? If a school district reverts to racially segregated classrooms, does a divorced black mother have no standing because the father prefers that policy? If — in direct violation of Supreme Court precedent — a public school district starts teaching the biblical account of Creation, is a scientist prohibited from challenging that practice because the other parent is a fundamentalist Christian?

And what if a mother agrees with her daughter's teacher that it's proper to start off every school day by having the class stand up and say that it's fine to treat atheists (like the girl's father) as second-class citizens? Wait a minute: that's precisely the case that, after tens of thousands of hours invested over six years, the Supreme Court simply dismissed last week.

The New York Times Op-Ed Contributor: Pledging Allegiance to My Daughter — Michael Newdow was the plaintiff in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow.