Challenge to California Policy Limiting Teachers’ Disclosure to Parents of Student’s Changed Gender Identity …
From Mirabelli v. Olson, decided today by Judge Roger Benitez (S.D. Cal.), the introduction and the conclusion:
Plaintiffs are teachers in the Escondido Union School District (“EUSD”) and parents of students in other California school districts…. The Plaintiffs contend that a state policy promulgated by the California Department of Education and adopted by local school districts violate their rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments …. The gravamen of the state policy is that public school teachers are not to reveal to parents a student’s announced change of gender identity in order to maintain the student’s privacy, except where the student consents to disclosure….
It is still true that a request to change one’s own name and pronouns may be the first visible sign that a child or adolescent may be dealing with issues that could lead to gender dysphoria or related health issues. Yet, for teachers, communicating to a parent the social transition of a school student to a new gender—by using preferred pronouns or incongruent dress—is not generally permitted under EUSD’s and the State Defendants’ policies.
The Supreme Court has long recognized that parents hold a federal constitutional Due Process right to direct the health care and education of their children. The Defendants stand on unprecedented and more recently created state law child rights to privacy and to be free from gender discrimination. These rights may compete when it comes to information about a child’s expressed gender incongruence in a public school. Parents have a right to know about their child gender expression at school. And a child has a right to keep gender expressions private and to be protected from discrimination.
The Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit have clearly and unambiguously declared parents’ rights as they relate to their children…. “We have long recognized the potential conflict between the state’s interest in protecting children from abusive or neglectful conditions and the right of the families it seeks to protect to be free of unconstitutional intrusion into the family unit, which can have its own potentially devastating and long lasting effects.” …
There are no controlling decisions that would compel this Court to limit or infringe parental rights, notwithstanding the State’s laudable goals of protecting children. This Court concludes that, in a collision of rights as between parents and child, the long-recognized federal constitutional rights of parents must eclipse the state rights of the child. Therefore, the Court finds that the Plaintiffs have stated plausible claims upon which relief can be granted and the motions to dismiss are denied.
The opinion is over 8000 words long, but here’s an excerpt:
While the government may hire teachers to deliver prescribed curricular speech, it may not compel its employees to do so in a way that intentionally abridges parental constitutional rights or in a manner that is unlawful. The teacher Plaintiffs allege t
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