United States of America

SCOTUS Rejects School Gender Transition Secrecy Case

Are schools secretly violating parental rights or protecting vulnerable kids by respecting gender identity?

Published APR 21

SCOTUS Rejects School Gender Transition Secrecy Case

Story

Above: The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., on April 20. Image credit: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The Facts

The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a case brought by two Massachusetts parents — Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri — against a school district in the state, alleged to have secretly facilitated their child's gender transition without their knowledge or consent.
Reuters
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The parents accused the Baird Middle School in Ludlow of violating their parental and constitutional rights by imposing a protocol that directed staff to use a student's preferred name and pronouns at school, while using the child's legal name when communicating with their parents without notifying them.
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The school district, meanwhile, argued that the protocol described by the parents did not exist outside their complaint, and that staff were instead following state law and Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) guidance — actions that did not violate constitutional rights and were protected by qualified immunity in any event.
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A federal district court dismissed the case in December 2022, with Judge Mark G. Mastroianni ruling that the plaintiffs' complaint failed to demonstrate that the defendant's conduct met the conscience-shocking standard or included mental health treatment.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit later upheld the lower court's judgment, finding that the parents had not sufficiently shown a deprivation of their parental rights under the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause. The parents subsequently launched an appeal to the Supreme Court.
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However, after considering the petition at 13 consecutive conferences, the Supreme Court denied it without comment. The denial came less than two months after the court blocked a similar California policy on its emergency docket.
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Sources Split

LEFT

CENTER

RIGHT

ESTAB
CRIT

CENTER

PRO
ESTAB

The Spin

Narrative A

Public schools have no business secretly transitioning kids behind their parents' backs. When a Ludlow school hid a child's gender transition from their parents, used a different name at school and fired the teacher who told the truth, it crossed a clear constitutional line. With over 1,000 school districts imposing similar policies, the courts must shut down this abhorrent practice.

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Narrative B

Respecting a student's stated gender identity, as Massachusetts law requires, does not violate parental rights. The children in this case advocated for themselves and requested confidentiality, which the school abided by in accordance with state anti-discrimination law and DESE guidance. Parents do not have a constitutional right to force a public school to reject their own child's identity.

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