The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to decide whether a public school violated parents’ rights by encouraging a student to transition to a new gender.
Foote v. Ludlow School Committee, focuses on parents in Massachusetts who said the school district their children attend attempted to socially transition their middle-school-aged daughter after explicitly being told not to do so. Lawyers for the parents said the school allowed their daughter to use bathrooms where boys undressed and a new name.
“School officials actively concealed their activities by using B.F.’s real name and pronouns when communicating with [their parents] but using her male name and nonbinary pronouns at school,” lawyers for the parents wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court.
The Parental Rights Foundation, in a brief to the court, urged the justices to consider the case under strict scrutiny and give parents the ability to make decisions about how their children should be raised.
“The right of parents to direct and control the upbringing of their children is a fundamental, unalienable right,” the Parental Rights Foundation wrote. “[The] government must demonstrate that its policy advances interests of the highest order and is narrowly tailored to achieve those interests.”
Lawyers for the school argued administrators and teachers in the Massachusetts system followed the wishes of the child to adopt a new name and pronouns.
“The Parents are challenging how Baird Middle School chooses to maintain what it considers a desirable and fruitful pedagogical environment,” lawyers wrote in reference to a lower court’s opinion.
The case follows Mirabelli v. Bonta, a 6-3 decision, where the justices said California’s policy allowing schools to socially transition students violated the First and 14th Amendments.
Justice Elena Kagan, in her dissenting opinion on Mirabelli, called for the court to hear Foote v. Ludlow School Committee instead of granting California parents’ relief Mirabelli v. Bonta.
“By granting certiorari on one (or more) of those cases, the Court could ensure that the issues raised by such policies receive the careful, disciplined consideration they merit, rather than the inevitably truncated review the Court affords emergency applications,” Kagan wrote.
Instead, the majority of justices on the court appeared to overrule Kagan and denied hearing the Massachusetts case without explanation.
