(The Center Square) – A coalition of 17 states, lawmakers and advocacy organizations has filed 12 friend-of-the-court briefs urging the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold that parents and teachers have constitutional rights to know about their children despite public school gender policies.
The briefs were filed in Mirabelli v. Bonta, a case involving California’s “Parental Exclusion Policies,” which the Thomas More Society led as counsel for a class of parents and teachers challenging the policies.
In December, U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez issued a permanent injunction blocking the policies, saying that parents have the right to know and public schools cannot socially transition students’ gender while withholding that information from their parents.
The 9th Circuit, which is based in San Francisco, later stayed the injunction. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the stay in a 6-3 decision, The Center Square previously reported.
California has continued its appeal, and Thomas More Society filed an answering brief at the end of August urging the 9th Circuit to affirm the injunction. According to the Thomas More Society, California is continuing to argue that parents do not have a right to know about their child’s gender identity unless they specifically ask.
“California’s response to the Supreme Court is not nuanced,” the brief stated. “In doubling down on exactly the same arguments the Supreme Court rejected, California’s audacious request is that this Court override the Supreme Court’s ruling in this case.”
“The Supreme Court already told California that its gender secrecy policy cannot stand. Now dozens of states, sitting members of Congress, physicians, and legal scholars are echoing the same message,” Peter Breen, executive vice president and head of litigation at Thomas More Society, said in a statement. “California should stop fighting a battle it has already lost and let parents back into their children’s lives.”
Following this appeal, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Manhattan Institute, Defending Education, Concerned Women for America and many other organizations and elected officials have sent briefs arguing that school-facilitated social transitions should not conceal sensitive decisions about children from their families.
Five Republican U.S. senators – Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, Roger Marshall of Kansas and James Banks of Indiana – argue that parental rights are rooted in centuries of legal tradition and protected by the Constitution.
An amicus curiae from 17 states contends that parental authority is among the nation’s oldest recognized fundamental liberties and that states have an independent interest in protecting parents’ rights.
“[O]ur Constitution places the burden on States to respect fundamental rights, not on citizens to claw back the right to parent their own children after their express demands are flatly rejected. The decision below inverts this constitutional reality,” the states’ brief said.