'Parent-Free Zones'? US Court Rules School Had Right to Hide Child's Gender Identity from Parents

Massachusetts parents of a middle school student are hoping to take their case against their child's school district to the U.S. Supreme Court. That comes after a federal court ruled they do not have a constitutional right to be informed that their daughter changed her gender identity and name while at school. The court essentially ruled that her school had a right to hide that information from the parents. 

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's decision to dismiss a lawsuit by parents, Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri, who challenged the Baird Middle School's policy of concealing a child's gender identity and other information from them.

The parents had written the school and told them their daughter was gender-confused and under professional care and that no one was to communicate with her about it, the Daily Signal reports. However, the child told school officials that she considered herself "genderqueer" and said she did not want her parents to know about it. 

According to the lawsuit, teachers and other school employees began referring to the 11-year-old girl by a different name and gender identity of the child's choosing at school. Meanwhile, they used the child's given name and gender identity when communicating with the parents.

They also asked the young girl if her parents were providing her with "appropriate care," and if she was comfortable discussing issues with the counselor chosen by her parents. Much of these conversations took place by text, behind closed doors, and in online chat rooms without her parents' consent. 

The parents filed a federal lawsuit in 2022 against the school alleging that the school violated their due process rights under the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment.

A three-judge panel ruled last week that while parents have a fundamental right to be informed about significant aspects of their child's life and direct them, those rights are limited. 

It added that the nondisclosure policy adopted by the Ludlow School Committee did "not restrict parental rights in a way courts have recognized as a violation of the guarantees of substantive due process."

"As per our understanding of Supreme Court precedent, our pluralistic society assigns those curricular and administrative decisions to the expertise of school officials, charged with the responsibility of educating children," the panel wrote.

Vernadette Ramirez Broyles, president and General Counsel for the Child & Parental Rights Campaign, represented the parents in this case. She is considering asking the Supreme Court to intervene because the 1st Circuit Court "wrongly apprehended the fundamental parental right at issue." 

"Effectively, parents are losing the ability to direct the upbringing of their child, if they choose to send their children to schools they pay for with their taxes," she said. "That cannot possibly be the standard for the children of the 1st Circuit. We must petition the United States Supreme Court to reverse this."

Sarah Parshall Perry, a senior legal fellow with the Heritage Foundation, says the court "got much of the legal analysis right until the very end of its opinion, when things went very, very wrong."  

"The court accurately determined that school confidentiality policies function like exercises of 'legislative' (rather than 'executive') governmental authority," she explained. "By (correctly) determining that the policy was 'legislative' in nature, the court noted that the parents had to show that the government school had interfered with a 'fundamental right': here, the right to direct the care, upbringing, health, and education of their minor child. This, too, was the correct analysis."

However, the court determined that the school did not infringe on their parental rights because the gender nondisclosure policy was administrative in nature. 

"In other words, the parents' right to direct the upbringing of their child and direct government officials to respect their right to take care of their child's mental and emotional health was akin to, to school officials, a dress code or some other purely administrative rule," Perry explained. 

She added, "In this jaw-droppingly cavalier discourse, the court seems to be saying: Public schools are parent-free zones. And by the way, maybe you should just pay closer attention to what your child is doing."

How It All Began

According to the lawsuit, this all began in the 2020-21 school year, when the school's librarian gave sixth-grade students an assignment to create biographic videos about themselves. Students were told they needed to include their pronouns in their video. 

In the months that followed, the student's school Google account started receiving "unsolicited LGBTQ-themed video suggestions" on her school-issued computer. 

After watching the clips, the student began to question whether she "might be attracted to girls" and whether she "has 'gender identity' issues."

Shortly afterward, the student sent an email to teachers and officials telling them that she was "genderqueer" and announced a name change.

She also told them she was comfortable being addressed by pronouns "she/her he/him they/them fa/faerae/aer ve/ver xe/xem ze/zir," but not "it/its."

"I am telling you this because I feel like I can trust you," the email said. "I have added a link so you can look at how to say them. Please only use the ones I have listed and not the other ones. I do not like them. Thank you."

Following that email, teachers began calling the student by her chosen name, the school librarian, who identifies as "non-binary," reportedly spoke to the student about her gender identity in a one-on-one meeting and provided her with LGBT materials. Additionally, the school counselor asked her privately which bathroom she preferred to use. 

The 11-year-old's parents only learned about what was taking place at the school after a teacher inadvertently slipped up and told the parents she was being called a different name while at school. 

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