(The Center Square) – In what is widely viewed as a major victory for parents’ rights, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to pause a lower court injunction, allowing a ruling to stand that blocks California policies requiring schools to keep student gender identity changes secret from parents. The lower court found such policies likely violate the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
Parents’ rights groups in Washington state, however, remain cautious about the ruling, as the state continues to enforce policies that prioritize student privacy over proactive parental notification. Last year, the Legislature passed – and Gov. Bob Ferguson signed into law – House Bill 1296, a major overhaul of the voter-backed Initiative 2081, the Parents’ Bill of Rights, which Democrats argued conflicted with existing state and federal privacy law.
In Mirabelli v. Bonta, a group of teachers and parents challenged California school policies, often referred to as “forced outing” bans, which prohibited staff from disclosing a student’s gender identity change to parents without the student’s consent.
In a 6-3 ruling, the nation’s highest court reversed the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which had previously allowed the policy to stand.
“Since Washington state has laws that force teachers to lie to parents that are identical to the unconstitutional California laws, it would be reasonable to conclude that the Washington Anti-parent laws are just as unconstitutional as the California Anti-parent laws – and that the Washington Governor and State Superintendent would immediately issue statements to every school district in our state telling them to stop following these clearly unconstitutional Anti-parent laws,” wrote David Spring with the Washington Parents Network.
As reported by The Center Square, just over a year ago, Spring and WPN filed a Title IX complaint against Washington School Superintendent Chris Reykdal and Ferguson for failing to comply with the Trump administration directive to protect girls in sports and keep boys out of girls’ private spaces.
At that time Reykdal posted a video that said, in part, “It is quite simply inaccurate to say biologically that there are only boys and there are only girls. Our state laws make clear that students get to identify and participate in activities based on the gender in which they identify. We’re going to uphold that law.”
Spring said even though the Supreme Court has now weighed in, he doesn’t believe Reykdal or Ferguson will comply.
“We do not believe that our governor or our state superintendent will issue such a statement – or uphold their Oath of Office,” he said. “Instead, we believe that both will continue to violate Parental Rights and continue to violate the US Constitution.”
Jackson Maynard, executive director of the Citizen Action Defense Fund, told The Center Square on Tuesday that the Supreme Court’s ruling is significant and could bolster CADF’s related case filed in Thurston County Superior Court in October.
“I think it’s important not just for freedom of speech and for religious rights, for the two teachers that were plaintiffs in that case that were challenging policies that forced them as teachers to not disclose information to parents about their children … but I think it’s also really important for parental rights,” he said. “We have some policies here in Washington that similarly require school districts not to disclose information to parents.”
CADF’s challenge was to HB 1296.
“So, there’s a lot from that decision that we’ll be able to use potentially in the challenge here in Washington state,” Maynard explained.
The Center Square asked about the Supreme Court’s ruling during a Tuesday morning media availability with Republican legislative leadership.
“What I read characterized it as the largest win for parents’ rights in recent history and I agree with that,” said Senate Minority Leader John Braun of Centralia. “If children are having gender dysphoria or struggling with other things, that’s the absolute wrong time, the worst time perhaps to separate them from their parents.”
Braun said Washington already has protections in place for children in cases of abuse.
“That’s a different situation. The idea that we wouldn’t tell parents about these very significant things going on in their children’s lives is very harmful to the children, to their parents and to the trust between school districts and parents,” said Braun, without indicating if he believes the ruling will change anything in Washington.
Washington State Republican Party Chair Jim Walsh, who also serves in the House of Representatives, told The Center Square on Tuesday that the Supreme Court ruling should absolutely change things in Washington.
“There’s this move afoot to what they call socially transition gender confused children. And so that at school, a boy can pass as a girl or try to. And this is hidden from the parents or the custodial guardians. This is very, very bad stuff,” Walsh said. “It is bad ethically, it’s bad legally, it’s bad morally.”
The Center Square reached out to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction for comment on the ruling and received a response via email: “We are closely reviewing the decision to understand whether there are implications for Washington’s school districts. What’s clear so far is that Washington’s law is different than California’s law. Districts should continue to follow Washington’s law.”
Walsh said OSPI and Ferguson can attempt to ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling, but he said it most certainly applies to Washington.
“Their rulings, of course, apply to all federal courts, and our state constitution has a supremacy clause in it that recognizes federal law, especially at the Supreme Court level, as the highest law in the land,” he said.
