Supreme Court Rejects Gender Identity and Parental Rights Case

The Supreme Court on Oct. 14 turned away a petition from parents whose children were secretly given gender identity instruction.

Justices declined to grant a writ of certiorari, or a petition of reconsideration, filed by parents of middle school students in Colorado.

The decision was not explained.

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, said he agreed the petition should not have been granted but that he was concerned some federal courts are tempted “to avoid confronting a ‘particularly contentious constitutional questio[n].”

That question, he said, is whether a school district violates the fundamental rights of parents “when, without parental knowledge or consent, it encourages a student to transition to a new gender or assists in that process.”

He added: “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. The troubling—and tragic—allegations in this case underscore the ‘great and growing national importance’ of the question that these parent petitioners present.”

The Supreme Court only accepts 100 to 150 of the more than 7,000 writs it receives each year. Four of nine justices must vote to accept a case.

The case in question involves two students who went to Gender and Sexualities Alliance meetings that discussed gender identity and featured warnings about divulging the discussions with their parents, according to court documents.

The parents of the students, who attended a middle school in Colorado, sued Poudre School District, alleging that district policies infringed on their rights as parents. One such policy directed that employees “should not disclose information that may reveal a student’s transgender or nonbinary status to others, including … parents.”

“As in many schools in America today, Respondent has implemented a series of policies that usurp parental authority in favor of schools’ authority, effectively denying parents the right to the care, custody, and control of their children,” the parents said in a petition to the Supreme Court.

Lower courts rejected the case, finding that the parents had not established liability for school officials.

“These rulings invite Respondent to continue surreptitiously wresting decision-making authority from fit parents unawares and instead vesting that authority in school officials,” the parents stated.

Lawyers for the district told Supreme Court justices that they should not accept the petition.

“Even if this Court is interested in the parents’ arguments, this is the wrong case to consider whether public school employees’ alleged discouraged disclosure regarding gender identity and expression implicates a fundamental right,” they said.