FFRF’s 2026 law student essay contest winners

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is proud to announce the three winners (and two honorable mentions) of the Diane and Stephen Uhl Memorial Essay Competition for Law Students.

FFRF paid out a total of $10,000 to the winners of this year’s contest.

Law school students were asked to write an essay on this topic: Analyze how the principle of “parental rights” has changed. In 2025, the Supreme Court extended Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), citing it repeatedly in Mahmoud v. Taylor, where the court sided with religious parents who objected on religious grounds to public school instruction that included books with LGBTQ themes or characters. Analyze how the principle of “parental rights” changes from Yoder to Mahmoud. What other constitutional or societal interests might conflict with this expanded understanding of parental rights in the First Amendment context? Discuss how the court could or should balance these competing interests in future cases.

For ease of reading, the essays published here do not include the footnotes and citations that were included in the authors’ submissions. Thanks to attorneys Jennifer Green, Monica Toole, Tyler Steeb and Sammi Lawrence for grading and selecting the winners.

Winners are listed below and include the law school they are attending and the award amount.

First place: Sam Foer, Washington & Lee University School of Law, $4,000.

Second place: Zoe Schacht, Brooklyn Law School, $3,000.

Third place: Ashni Verma, New York University School of Law, $2,000.

Honorable mentions:

Wesley Michael Harris, Florida A&M College of Law, $500.

Maya Gardner, University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law, $500.