The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a case brought by Colorado parents over the local public middle school’s policy to not inform parents about their children’s “gender transition” decisions.
The case was declined on procedural grounds.
The SCOTUS agreed with the lower courts that the case was not brought correctly on the proper grounds.
Lower courts dismissed the case against Wellington Middle School in Poudre School District R-1 on procedural grounds before considering it on the merits.
Parents wanted to challenge “District Secrecy Policies” that said teachers and administrators could keep a child’s so-called “gender transition” a secret from the students’ families.
The policy is not to inform parents that the child was “identifying” as a “different gender,” and even taking on a different name at school.
Parents argued that the policy violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause by denying them parental rights to be informed and make decisions for their children.
The school district’s attorneys argued that the petitioners were seeking “an advisory opinion that would fail to afford them any relief from the rulings below, and this is the wrong case to consider whether a public school employee’s alleged discouraged disclosure regarding gender identity and expression implicates a fundamental right.”
The parents argue that the case involves 12 and 13-year-old children who are generally quite immature and whose ideas about gender identity are often changeable.
It’s widely regarded that schools should not be allowed to hide this or any other information from parents, who have the right to make these decisions for their children.
While even the most conservative justices on the court agreed with the ruling, Justice Samuel Alito encouraged lower courts not to avoid similar cases that did not have the procedural hurdles this one does.
“I concur in the denial of certiorari because petitioners do not challenge the ground for the ruling below,” Alito wrote.
“But I remain concerned that some federal courts are tempted to avoid confronting a particularly contentious constitutional question: whether a school district violates parents’ fundamental rights when, without parental knowledge or consent, it encourages a student to transition to a new gender or assists in that process.
“Petitioners tell us that nearly 6,000 public schools have policies—as respondent allegedly does—that purposefully interfere with parents’ access to critical information about their children’s gender identity choices and school personnel’s involvement in and influence on those choices,” he continued.
“The troubling—and tragic—allegations in this case underscore the great and growing national importance of the question that these parent petitioners present.”
A case like this one definitely needs to be heard, either in a lower court or by the Supreme Court if necessary.
It is unfortunate that this case was bungled procedurally and that the courts will have to wait for some other brave parents to get fed up with the schools taking their power away.
Most good parents know that kids this age are not making a long-term decision when they decide to change their gender identity.
Parents should be the ones deciding how that plays out in their child’s life, not the school.
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