In the latest round of legal filings related to Newcastle mom Amber Lavigne’s lawsuit against the Great Salt Bay Community School (GSBCS) in Damariscotta, AOS 93 school officials admit social worker Samuel Roy supplied Lavigne’s 13-year-old daughter with a breast binder.
However, the school, represented by the liberal Portland-based law firm Drummond Woodsum, denies that the binder was given in secret.
The Drummond Woodsum attorneys also claim in their legal filings that parents do not have a constitutionally protected right to be informed by government-run schools about vital aspects of their children’s lives, such as nascent sex changes.
“The very premise of [Lavigne’s] claims—that the Constitution requires a school to keep parents up to speed on how their children are navigating their sexual identity at school—is not accurate,” Drummond Woodsum attorney Melissa A. Hewey said in the filing.
The school’s attorneys argue that Lavigne was involved in discussions about her daughter’s gender counseling, but that even if she wasn’t, that’s besides the point, because it’s entirely legal and constitutional for employees at government-run schools to coach students on gender changes without informing their parents.
The preliminary filings have set the stage for what will be a major constitutional showdown over the role of transgender ideology and parental rights in public schools — a showdown that could have vast implications for schools throughout Maine and across the country.
Lavigne’s lawsuit was filed against the GSBCS board, AOS 93 Superintendent Lynsey Johnston, Principal Kim Schaff, Roy, and social worker Jessica Berk — all in their official capacities.
The story first surfaced at a December school board meeting during which Lavigne revealed that she had found a breast binder in her daughter’s bedroom. She said her daughter later told her that Roy, a conditionally licensed 26-year-old social worker with whom the young girl had met just a few times, supplied the binder.
Lavigne further said she was never informed that Roy was coaching her daughter on how to compress her breasts and disguise the female attributes of her body, and she said school officials never told her that they were using male pronouns to refer to her daughter.
Roy remains an employee at GSBCS, and last week the Maine Board of Licensure in Social Work determined that he will face no discipline for his conduct with regard to Lavigne’s daughter.
In her lawsuit against the school, Lavigne’s attorneys reasserted her claim that the school used a new name for her daughter and pronouns not associated with her biological sex without informing Lavigne.
The school officials admitted that school staff participated in the social gender transition, but they deny that Lavigne was not informed.
According to the legal filings, the board members “affirmatively state that the school had been in discussion with [Lavigne] about these matters for some time.”
Lavigne has consistently maintained that she was never informed about the breast binder, that she has never talked with Roy, and that she didn’t know about the binder or school staffers’ using male pronouns for her daughter. But she has said she was aware of her daughter’s gender-related mental health challenges and has described her daughter as a tom boy.
She told the Maine Wire in December she had never met with or talked to Roy at the time he was counseling her daughter on how to become a man.
Goldwater Institute attorney Adam C. Shelton, Lavigne’s lead counsel, is joined on the case by Bangor attorney Brett D. Baber of Lanham Blackwell & Baber PA.
Shelton said in the legal complaint that GSBCS personnel unconstitutionally interfered with Lavigne’s well-established right to control and direct the care, custody, education, upbringing, and healthcare decisions of her child.
“By withholding and concealing information from [Lavigne], Defendants left [Lavigne] without the ability to choose how to advise [her daughter] with respect to the risks and benefits of wearing a chest binder, or the potential future consequences of employing an alternate name and pronouns,” Shelton said in the complaint said.
“The Defendants’ policy, pattern, and practice of concealment also left [Lavigne] without the ability to seek additional or alternative educational, emotional, mental and physical health care arrangements for [her daughter],” Shelton said.
“The Great Salt Bay Community School Board’s official policy and widespread custom of making decisions for students without informing or consulting with their parents established an environment in which giving [Lavigne’s daughter] a chest binder and instructing [her daughter] on how to use a chest binder—without consulting [Lavigne], and afterwards withholding or concealing this information from [Lavigne]—was not only allowed but considered standard practice for [Samuel] Roy,” he said.
The complaint says Lavigne has been forced to remove her children from GSBCS because she no longer trusts school officials to inform her about important developments in her kids’ lives and educations.
The complaint also targets statements the school board issued after the story drew national attention, calling them “post hoc rationalizations” which show school staff were not properly trained on the relevance and requirements of parental rights. It alleges the school board caused injury to Lavigne by failing to ensure school officials understood the meaning and relevance of parental rights.
“Defendants’ actions indicate a deliberate indifference to [Lavigne’s] parental rights which shock the contemporary conscience because there is no sufficient government interest that would justify Defendants’ actions,” Shelton said in the complaint.
Although Drummond Woodsum has filed a motion to dismiss the complaint, they also took the unusual step of answering the complaint before a judge ruled on that motion.
You can read below Lavigne’s complaint, the motion to dismiss, and Drummond Woodsum’s response.
Am so glad my children are out of school.
Seriously thinking of homeschooling granddaughter. Her mom and I are so afraid of her going to school.