Advancing American Freedom led a coalition of 76 co-amici in filing an amicus brief in Mirabelli v. Bonta, a case in which parents and teachers are challenging a California school policy that requires teachers to deceive parents about their child’s gender transition at school.
One of the families who brought this challenge did not find out that their daughter was being treated as a boy at school until after she attempted suicide.
No parent should have to worry that, without their knowledge and consent, their children are being taught gender ideology at school. Yet public school policies like the one in this case have become commonplace across the nation and have recently been challenged in at least ten of the thirteen Federal Circuits.
In a ruling on the emergency docket earlier this year, the Supreme Court said that the parents were likely to succeed on their claims in this case and thus paused enforcement of California’s policy while litigation proceeds. Now the case returns to the Ninth Circuit to be decided on the merits.
The Ninth Circuit should reiterate what the Supreme Court has long held and what it said in this case: parents, not school officials, have the right to direct the education and upbringing of their children. Few rights are as deeply rooted and embedded in America’s tradition as parental rights.
“Americans do not lose their parental rights simply because they are not willing to claim a religious exemption or because they cannot afford to send their children to private schools. As such, the Supreme Court said that the parents in this case were likely to succeed on both their free exercise and their due process claims,” said AAF General Counsel J. Marc Wheat. “The Ninth Circuit should rule for plaintiffs so that parents’ rights in are protected and teachers are not forced to deceive parents as a condition of keeping their jobs.”