(Washington) The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for California schools to inform parents if their children identify as transgender without obtaining the student’s consent, granting an emergency appeal filed by a conservative legal group.
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The move for now blocks a state law that prohibits the requirement to automatically notify parents if students change their pronoun or gender expression at school.
The split decision follows parents and religious educators’ challenge to California school policies aimed at preventing schools from disclosing students’ sexual orientation to their families. Two groups of Catholic parents represented by the Thomas More Society say this led to schools misleading them and secretly facilitating their children’s social transition despite their objections.
California, on the other hand, has argued that students have a right to privacy regarding their gender expression, particularly if they fear rejection from their families. The state said school policies and state law aim to balance parents’ rights.
The Supreme Court majority, however, sided with the parents and reinstated a lower court ruling blocking the law and school policies while the case continues to play out.
“Parents who claim the free exercise of their religion have sincerely held religious beliefs about sex and gender, and they believe they have a religious obligation to raise their children in accordance with these beliefs. California’s policies violate these beliefs” and interfere with the free exercise of religion, the majority wrote in an unsigned order.
The Court’s three liberal justices publicly disagreed, saying the case was still pending in the lower courts and there was no need to intervene now.
“At the very least, this Court owes it to a sovereign state to avoid precipitately rejecting its policies, if it can follow normal procedures. But rejecting state policy is what the Court is doing today,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote.
Conservative judges Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas indicated that they would have gone further and granted the teachers’ request to lift the restrictions imposed on them.
The Thomas More Society called the ruling “the most important parental rights decision in a generation.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office defended the law, saying teachers should focus on teaching and should not be required to “play gender police.”
PHOTO CARLOS BARRIA, REUTERS ARCHIVES
California Governor Gavin Newsom
The move “undermines students’ privacy and their ability to learn in a safe and supportive classroom without discrimination based on gender identity,” said Marissa Saldivar, a spokeswoman for the Democratic governor.
The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of religious plaintiffs in other recent cases, including allowing parents to remove their children from classes in public schools if they object to storybooks featuring LGBTQ+ characters.
California’s decision comes several months after the Court upheld the state’s ban on gender identity-related health care for minors. The justices also appear inclined to allow states to ban transgender athletes from playing on women’s sports teams.
School policies regarding transgender students have also been examined by the Court in other cases.
The court rejected another similar case in Wisconsin in December, but three conservative justices indicated they would hear the case. Justice Samuel Alito called school policies “an issue of growing national importance.”
The justices considered whether to hear arguments in cases from states including Massachusetts and Florida, filed by other parents who say schools facilitated social transition without informing them.
Separately, the Trump administration ruled in January that California’s policies violated parents’ rights to access their children’s education records. The Justice Department also filed a lawsuit after determining that state policies regarding transgender athletes violated federal civil rights law.
