The U.S. Supreme Court Monday blocked California school policies that prohibit teachers from sharing students’ preferred gender identities with their parents, a ruling that stemmed from a lawsuit originally filed by two Escondido middle school teachers.
In a 6-3 decision, the justices lifted a stay on a San Diego federal judge’s ruling that barred the policies. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had stayed U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez’s order from last December, pending appeal.
Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West, who worked at Rincon Middle School, sued over policies that prevented teachers and other school employees from informing parents if their child might be transgender or gender nonconforming. Such information would include whether the child is using different pronouns or gender-specific names at school.
The plaintiffs — which later came to include multiple parents — challenged the policies on religious grounds, while attorneys for the state argued students whose gender identities are shared with their parents could face “substantial harm,” particularly if those students are living in unsupportive home environments. Keeping such information private protects students from potential discrimination, abuse and harassment, the state argued.
The Supreme Court wrote in its ruling, “These policies likely violate parents’ rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children.”
Regarding the state’s arguments focused on protecting vulnerable children, the ruling said its injunction “also permits the state to shield children from unfit parents by enforcing child-abuse laws and removing children from parental custody in appropriate cases.”
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, and in her opinion, Kagan wrote that the court’s ruling came too rashly, with a decision rendered without oral argument or allowing the 9th Circuit to issue a ruling on the case’s merits.
“The Court is impatient: It already knows what it thinks, and insists on getting everything over quickly,” Kagan wrote.
Kagan added that the “thorny legal issues” presented by the case could eventually show that the plaintiffs should be granted relief, but she wrote that the court had concluded the case without examining all the relevant facts.
The California Attorney General’s Office could not immediately be reached for comment regarding Monday’s ruling.
Peter Breen, head of litigation at Thomas More Society, a conservative law firm that represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement, “No more can bureaucrats secretly facilitate a child’s gender transition while shutting out parents. California built a wall of secrecy between parents and their own children, and the Supreme Court just tore it down. This groundbreaking ruling will protect parents’ rights to raise their children as they see fit for years to come.”
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