Supreme Court blocks California schools from hiding students' gender identity from their parents
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against a California public school policy that requires teachers to withhold information from parents about whether or not their children are transgender identifying in school.
In a per curiam opinion issued Monday evening, the nation's high court sided with parents opposed to the state policy for various reasons, including religious objections.
The 6-3 ruling allows a federal judge's injunction against the state's requirement that schools withhold gender identity information from parents unless they have the child's consent to go into effect after an appeals court put the judge's ruling on hold.
The court ruled that the parents who seek religious exemptions "are likely to succeed on the merits of their Free Exercise Clause claim," noting that "California’s policies likely trigger strict scrutiny under that provision because they substantially interfere with the 'right of parents to guide the religious development of their children.'" The court didn't grant a similar request filed by teachers.
The court opinion concluded that the policy was an “intrusion on parents’ free exercise rights,” namely, those parents who hold religious objections to LGBT ideology.
“The State argues that its policies advance a compelling interest in student safety and privacy. But those policies cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents,” stated the per curiam opinion.
“The State’s interest in safety could be served by a policy that allows religious exemptions while precluding gender-identity disclosure to parents who would engage in abuse. For these reasons, the parents who object to the California policies on free exercise grounds are likely to succeed on the merits.”
The opinion notes that the policy had “due process” issues, noting that “parents — not the State — have primary authority with respect to ‘the upbringing and education of children.’”
“The right protected by these precedents includes the right not to be shut out of participation in decisions regarding their children’s mental health,” the opinion added.
“California’s policies conceal that information from parents and facilitate a degree of gender transitioning during school hours. These policies likely violate parents’ rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children.”
Justice Elena Kagan authored a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, taking issue with the speed at which the Supreme Court addressed the case.
“In granting emergency relief, the Court cannot even wait for an appellate court to conclude its own process for deciding the identical issue,” wrote Kagan.
“The Court jumps the line, pre-empting the Ninth Circuit’s normal (and notably reflective) en banc process. Why wait for appellate procedures to play out when the Court already knows what it wants?”
Kagan believes the case “presents some thorny legal issues,” but added that there were some genuinely concerning issues regarding California’s policy.
“California’s policy, in depriving all parents of information critical to their children’s health and well-being, could have crossed the constitutional line. And that would entitle the parents, at the end of the day, to relief,” she continued.
“The Court, however, would be far better equipped to draw the appropriate line and to explain its legal basis — in short, to do law in the right way — if it had followed our ordinary processes.”
The Thomas More Society, the legal group representing the parents and teachers, called the Supreme Court's ruling the "most significant parental rights ruling in a generation."
“This is a watershed moment for parental rights in America,” said Thomas More Society special counsel Paul M. Jonna. “The Supreme Court has told California and every state in the nation in no uncertain terms: you cannot secretly transition a child behind a parent’s back. The Court’s landmark reaffirmation of substantive due process, its vindication of religious liberty, and its approval of class-wide relief together set a historic precedent that will dismantle secret gender transition policies across the country.”
In 2023, two teachers filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California against a school district policy requiring education officials to hide a student's preferred gender identity from their parents, if the child wanted that.
The teachers were later joined by parents of children who had transitioned at school, but whose preferred gender identity was being kept from their families. State officials were added to the list of defendants because the policies were found to affect more than one school district.
In 2024, California passed a bill prohibiting school districts from requiring school officials to share information about a student's sexual orientation and gender identity with the child's parent without the child's consent.
Last December, U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California, a George W. Bush appointee, issued an order granting a permanent injunction against the California Department of Education policies.
Benitez ordered state officials and employees to refrain from “misleading the parent or guardian of a minor child in the education system about their child’s gender presentation at school."
The order also barred school employees from using “a name or pronoun to refer to that child that do not match the child’s legal name and natal pronouns, where a child’s parent or legal guardian has communicated their objection to such use.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a request for a stay on the injunction, arguing that the policies enforce "longstanding state laws that protect vulnerable transgender and gender nonconforming students."
“If the Orders are allowed to stay in effect before the Court of Appeals has a chance to review them, they would irrevocably alter the status quo and will create chaos and confusion among students, parents, teachers, and staff at California’s public schools,” stated the request.
“And this chaos and confusion would arise several days before the Christmas holiday. Absent at least a brief stay, Defendants will be forced to seek an emergency stay from the Ninth Circuit, just before Christmas, requiring that Court and its employees to spend time on the emergency over a state and federal holiday.”
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the requested stay days later, prompting the parents and teachers to file an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court.
