The United States Supreme Court announced Monday that they will not be hearing a case out of Wisconsin challenging a school district’s gender identity policies. Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas dissented.
As a result of this decision, the lower court’s ruling that the parents lacked standing to bring this case — which did not consider the merits of the case — will be upheld.
Filed against the Eau Claire Area School District, the lawsuit alleges that the district “facilitate[s] gender identity transitions at school and [keeps] this hidden from parents who would disagree that it is in their child’s best interest to change gender identity.”
According to the petition filed with the Supreme Court in June, the district trained its staff that “parents are not entitled to know their kids’ identities,” instead “that knowledge must be earned.”
As articulated by those bringing the lawsuit, the question presented to the Justices was: “When a school district adopts an explicit policy to usurp parental decision-making authority over a major health-related decision—and to conceal this from the parents—do parents who are subject to such a policy have standing to challenge it?”
Click Here to Read the Parents’ Petition to the Supreme Court
In a reply brief filed with the court in July, the school district argued that the parents group “grossly mischaracterizes the Administrative Guidance, relying on its own speculative interpretation rather than what the document says, just as it did before the Court of Appeals.”
The district goes on to suggest that the parents’ case is based on too much speculation, as the “possible future harm is completely dependent upon this highly attenuated chain of future possibilities that may never occur.”
“There is no case or controversy here,” the school district argues, suggesting that the Court ought not “disregard the case or controversy requirement of standing so that lower courts can issue advisory opinions on socially or politically charged issues.”
Click Here to Read the School District’s Reply Brief
It was not outlined in Monday’s decision why the majority of Justices felt the parents’ petition ought to be denied.
While Justice Kavanaugh did not elaborate on dissent, Justices Alito and Thomas include a page and a half explanation of why they would have granted the parents’ petition.
“This case presents a question of great and growing national importance: whether a public school district violates parents’ ‘fundamental constitutional right to make decisions concerning the rearing of’ their children, when,” the Justices said, “without parental knowledge or consent, it encourages a student to transition to a new gender or assists in that process.”
Alito and Thomas go on to say that the lower court relied on precedent to suggest that the parents’ had no standing to bring a case of this sort unless “the parent could show that his or her child is transitioning or considering a transition.”
“But the challenged policy and associated equity training specifically encourage school personnel to keep parents in the dark about the ‘identities’ of their children, especially if the school believes that the parents would not support what the school thinks is appropriate. Thus, the parents’ fear that the school district might make decisions for their children without their knowledge and consent is not ‘speculative,'” the Justices said. “They are merely taking the school district at its word.”
“I am concerned that some federal courts are succumbing to the temptation to use the doctrine of Article III standing as a way of avoiding some particularly contentious constitutional questions,” the Justices wrote.
Click Here to Read the Justices’ Ruling and Dissent
Similar concerns were raised by Maine mother Amber Lavigne against the Great Salt Bay Community School (GSBCS) Board for allegedly withholding information about her child’s gender transition.
In December of 2022, Lavigne discovered that a 26-year-old social worker by the name of Samuel Roy had given her 13-year-old child two breast binders — garments designed to conceal the appearance of a female’s breasts — and provided instructions on their use.
Lavigne also said that she was not told when Roy and other school officials began to use an alternative name and pronoun set for her child, a fact that was subsequently denied by GSBCS officials.
Central to Lavigne’s case was the argument that the GSBCS Board had adopted an unwritten Withholding Policy that was contrary to their formal Transgender Student Guidelines.
Lavigne argued that this Withholding Policy was “a systematic across-the-board practice which is not specified, but is hinted at, in the written ‘Guidelines.’”
The district court dismissed her lawsuit on the grounds that she failed to state a claim, arguing that the facts provided in this case were insufficient to establish municipal liability.
As with the case out of Wisconsin, the judge’s reasoning was based only on Lavigne’s inability to show that the municipality could legally be found responsible for the alleged violations, meaning that he did not address the underlying constitutional questions associated with Lavigne’s claims.
Less than three weeks after the district court issued its ruling, Lavigne filed an appeal with the First Circuit.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="33158 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=33158">1 Comment
“the parents’ case is based on too much speculation, as the “possible future harm is completely dependent upon this highly attenuated chain of future possibilities that may never occur.” So… if it does occur then sue? You would think that the schools insurance company would make them stop or get canceled. Don’t forget to sue each of the teachers involved after that.