SCOTUS Safeguards Parental Rights, Halts California’s ‘Exclusion Policies’
SCOTUS Safeguards Parental Rights, Halts California’s ‘Exclusion Policies’
The court held that the state cannot conceal students’ gender dysphoria symptoms from parents, while litigation continues in lower courts.
On Monday, in a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court blocked California’s school policies that prevented educators from informing parents if their children identify as transgender at school.
In Mirabelli v. Bonta, the court overturned a lower appeals court’s pause on a district court ruling, and this allowed the injunction against California’s nondisclosure policies to take effect for the parents challenging the law. The majority grounded its ruling in the First and FourteenthAmendments. It argued, “[P]arents who seek religious exemptions are likely to succeed on the merits of their Free Exercise Clause claim,” adding, “Under long-established precedent, parents — not the State — have primary authority with respect to ‘the upbringing and education of children.’” California’s policy barred schools from disclosing a student’s gender transition to parents without that child’s permission.
Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Jackson and Sotomayor, dissented. She said the court was “impatient” for stepping in before the appeals process played out, which she argued shows a “malfunction” of the judicial process. Kagan also said that the majority’s reasoning creates a “strong sense of whiplash” and that it relies on constitutional protections for parental rights after the court “repudiat[ed] a woman’s right to make important decisions about her own health” in Dobbs.
The legal challenge to the California policy began in 2023, when two teachers sought an exemption from their “compelled participation” in district policies barring them from informing parents about a student’s gender transition at school without the student’s consent. Their school district argued, “[S]tate law, as interpreted by the California attorney general and Department of Education, required it to adopt these policies.”
Among the parent plaintiffs are John and Jane Poe, whose experience was described in the court’s per curiam opinion. Their daughter “socially transitioned” at school in the seventh grade, without their knowledge. The court stated, “At the beginning of their daughter’s eighth-grade year, she attempted suicide and was hospitalized. Only then did her parents learn from a doctor that she had gender dysphoria and had been presenting as a boy at school.”
The opinion also noted that “Contrary to the Poes’ instructions, teachers and school officials continued to use a male name and pronouns for their daughter” after she was hospitalized as a “risk for self-harm.”
Similar legal disputes are unfolding nationwide. One case in Massachusetts, Foote v. Ludlow School Committee, challenges a district policy that requires teachers to use a student’s chosen name and pronouns.
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