The Supreme Court restored a statewide injunction blocking California policies that allow schools to keep students’ gender transitions secret from parents. In the 6–3 ruling, the justices said the practice likely violates constitutional parental rights.
In Mirabelli v. Bonta, parents and teachers challenged California policies requiring schools to keep information about a student’s gender transition confidential from parents—unless the student consents.
The Court said the practice likely violates both the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
NTD’s Daniel Monaghan spoke with Erin Mersino, a Supreme Court and appellate litigation chief, about the case. -- 📺 Watch NTD News 24/7 on cable, broadcast, and streaming: https://www.ntd.com/watch
And a major Supreme Court decision this week and a case challenging California's
secret gender transition policies in public schools. In a landmark 6-3 decision, the High
Court restored a statewide injunction blocking the practice. NDD's Daniel Monaghan spoke with
the Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation Chief about this case. In Mirabelli v. Bonta,
parents and teachers challenged California policies requiring schools to keep information
about a student's gender transition confidential from parents unless the student consents. The
court says the practice likely violates both the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause and the
Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. The ruling reverses a Ninth Circuit decision that
had paused a lower court injunction protecting parental rights. The justices ruled that such
secretive policies are not just administrative decisions, they are constitutional harms to
It's been long established, and the court has in numerous opinions in the past few years,
really honed in that it's a long established right under the Substantive Due Process Clause
that parents are able to control the upbringing of their children. And that includes the education
of their children and medical decisions involving their children. So, so long as a parent is a fit
parent, then the parent has that constitutional right. And that constitutional right trumps
the ability of a young child to say, you know, I don't want my parents to know about this.
Erin Marcino, Vice President and Chief of Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation at Advocates for
Faith and Freedom, says even one of the state's own defense witnesses acknowledged the problems
created by keeping parents in the dark. So it's strange for the child to be called one
pronoun at school and then a different pronoun at home. And so for that not to be cohesive is
actually damaging to the child. The high court also pointed to a decision it issued last June,
Mahmoud v. Taylor. That 6-3 ruling sided with Muslim, Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox parents
in Maryland who argued their religious rights were violated when elementary students were required to
be exposed to LGBT-themed books. The court was very clear that the protections that they carved
out in Mahmoud are broad and that they applied to gender transitions and other things that are
happening in the school that parents should be allowed to know about. They should be notified
and given an opportunity to opt out. Marcino says the decision could reshape how lower courts
handle similar cases. And the Supreme Court hadn't really taken a case in this area in quite some
time. And here they're saying we really did mean what we were saying back when we decided these
cases back many, many years ago. And here we're reinforcing it now. And so I think that the
Supreme Court made it very clear that the First Amendment rights of parents should be protected,
that parents should be involved in the upbringing of their children, and that schools can't keep
these sorts of major decisions secret from parents. And that's really what this case is about.
The court's ruling means that for now, no school district in California may conceal a child's
gender transition from parents, facilitate social transitions at school without parental knowledge,
or compel teachers to mislead families. Daniel Monaghan, NTD News.
