While the observation of Juneteenth ended hours ago, its meaning still echoes loudly. Juneteenth reminds us that freedom was delayed, long after the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed, long after justice had supposedly come. And yet, even now, in a country that celebrates its freedom, the right to parent your own children is being stripped away without cause, without warning, and far too often without legal justification.
Substantive due process is meant to protect us from this. It’s the constitutional safeguard that says government cannot take away our fundamental rights without a compelling reason, and even then, only with fairness, transparency, and lawful procedure. The right to raise your children has been upheld time and again by the U.S. Supreme Court as one of those sacred, unalienable rights. Yet today, agencies like DHR are acting as if that right is theirs to grant or take away.
What Is Substantive Due Process?
Before talking about system failure, we need to recognize the legal shield that’s supposed to protect us.
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
This clause is not just about fair procedures. Over time, the courts have interpreted it to include substantive due process: the principle that some rights are so fundamental to liberty that the government cannot infringe upon them, regardless of the procedures in place.
One of those fundamental rights is the right of parents to raise and make decisions for their children.
In the 2000 U.S. Supreme Court case Troxel v. Granville, the Court affirmed that:
“The interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court.”
This case, and others before it, made clear that parental rights are constitutionally protected, and that any attempt by the state to interfere must meet the highest legal standards: a compelling interest and due process that is both fair and justified.
And yet in practice, those standards are often ignored, leaving families vulnerable to a system that operates with more power than accountability.
Many would like to believe this is just a Black issue or a Latino issue. That it only happens to the working class or the overlooked. But this is an American issue.
A systemwide abuse of power is sweeping through households of every background. It is punishing families who cannot afford to fight back, do not know they are allowed to push back, or are simply too worn down to keep going. It is sucking the life out of families, draining the future of wealth transfer, and dimming the lights on legacies meant to empower the next generation.
Mothers are losing jobs. Fathers are being blackballed. Grandparents are mortgaging their homes. Everyone is draining their savings, just trying to survive a system designed to break them. Meanwhile, manipulative caseworkers return home untouched after turning generation after generation upside down.
This isn’t substantive. It’s far from it. This is a deep-seated evil moving through our communities, street by street, house by house, tearing families apart under the disguise of care. What we’re witnessing isn’t oversight. It’s destruction. It’s generational harm with no warning, no remorse, and no justice.
At this very moment, as we write, and in the very moment you read, another family is being forced into turmoil. Another household is being dismantled. Another child is crying themselves to sleep. Not because of abuse or danger, but because the state has decided they know better.
Substantive due process says otherwise.
We must demand more. We must protect the freedom to parent. Not just because it is legal, but because it is human. Because it is sacred. Because for too many, the shadow of Juneteenth still looms. The promise of freedom, yet again, delayed.
This time, the freedom to parent is being stripped away continuously. Yet blind eyes continue to be turned as if this trauma is non-existent. Our children are being taken wrongly to feed a greedy machine no longer operating in good faith but churning on American-inflicted trauma.
But this story isn’t finished. Families are rising. The silenced are finding their voices. And together, we are shedding light on the darkness they hoped no one would see.
The system won’t change itself. But we will keep pushing, keep rising, and keep fighting until it does.
