AMichigan school district may have violated the due process rights of parents by “actively concealing” their daughter’s identification as a boy, referring to the girl by her given name with parents and her “masculine” name at school, a federal judge ruled, exacerbating conflicts in the lower courts that may trigger Supreme Court review.
U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney, known for siding with a school district that banned students from wearing “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirts, greenlit Dan and Jennifer Mead‘s Fourteenth Amendment claims against Rockford Public School District for violating their “fundamental rights as parents” and “deprivation of liberty without due process.”
He dismissed the Meads’ free exercise claim, however, saying surreptitious social transitions don’t “compel students (or their parents) to believe or do anything,” contrary to the mandatory exposure to LGBTQ “storybooks,” compelled school attendance and flag-salute requirement struck down by the Supreme Court in precedents from the 1940s to this year.
The President George W. Bush nominee noted the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is binding on him, last month upheld an Ohio gender identity school restroom policy as “facially neutral” in a challenge by Muslim and Christian students. (Their only potential relief was damages, since Ohio mandated restroom access by sex during the case.)
The 1st Circuit, which oversees Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island and has no Republican-nominated judges, reached the opposite conclusion as Maloney on parental rights and due process earlier this year, prompting parents Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri to petition the Supreme Court.
Several friend-of-the-court briefs are backing the Massachusetts parents, including detransitioners who abandoned transgender identities after medicalization and a prominent transgender child psychologist who argues parents are integral to transitions.
The 3rd Circuit, covering Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, heard a similar case this summer and already has precedents upholding parental authority, including an opinion joined by future Justice Samuel Alito on “actions that strike at the heart of parental decision-making authority on matters of the greatest importance.”
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley called Maloney’s ruling “potentially precedent-setting” on parental rights in public schools. He highlighted Maloney’s finding that the Meads’ allegations “show some amount of coercion or interference” from the district, implicating their right to make “fundamental decisions” for the girl.
Hellbound and Down 