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We’re witnessing yet another victory in protecting our kids. And it was a hard-fought battle. Somewhere along the way, schools thought they had the authority to control parents, students and teachers. The most recent sham occurred when the schools in California were telling teachers that they no longer were permitted to tell parents that their children were engaged in gender transition. How did we reach the point where the schools believed they were all-powerful?
But a victory has been had by the violated parties:
In a landmark victory for parental rights, a federal judge in Southern California ruled Monday that parents have a constitutional right to be informed if their minor child socially transitions their gender at school and that teachers have a constitutional right to inform parents of the transition. U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California issued the summary judgment ruling in Mirabelli v. Olson, and issued a permanent injunction against California Attorney General Rob Bonta, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, and members of the California State Board of Education.
Some key elements of this ruling should be noted. One, this law was a violation of the constitutional rights of teachers toward parents, and of parents' right to be informed of their children’s interest in transitioning. That is to say, we are not talking about an arbitrary ruling of a federal judge. Second, which is key but might be less obvious, is the sanctity of the relationship between parents and children. No one and no-thing has the right to interfere with, or damage that relationship. That applies especially to schools.
The beauty of this case, too, is that it applies to all of California's parents and teachers, not just those involved in this case. The judge wanted to ensure that his ruling was clear and explicit, since laws in California had been passed to empower the schools against the parents.
In his Order of Summary Judgment for the Plaintiffs, the judge stated the following:
‘[T]his case presents the following four questions about a parent’s rights to information as against a public school’s policy of secrecy when it comes to a student’s gender identification. First, do parents have a right to gender information based on the Fourteenth Amendment’s substantive due process clause? Second, do parents have a right to gender information protected by the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause? Third, do religious public-school teachers have a right to provide gender information to parents based on the First Amendment’s free exercise clause? Fourth, do public school teachers have a right to communicate accurate gender information to parents based on the First Amendment free speech clause? In each case, this Court concludes that, as a matter of law, the answer is ‘yes.’ Parents have a right to receive gender information and teachers have a right to provide parents accurate information about a child’s gender identity.’
It's no surprise that the parties to complain included, predictably, for one, the California Attorney General’s office:
‘The Court’s sweeping injunction, which forecloses enforcement of state constitutional and statutory protections applicable in the school environment, inflicts severe and indisputable irreparable harm on California,’ lawyers with Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office wrote in their request. ‘We believe that the district court misapplied the law and that the decision will ultimately be reversed on appeal,’ a spokesperson for Bonta’s office said in an email Tuesday. ‘We are committed to securing school environments that allow transgender students to safely participate as their authentic selves while recognizing the important role that parents play in students’ lives.’
Almost every part of this statement borders on the ridiculous, including that these were rules, not laws. What does it mean to “secure school environments”? Why would gender-confused students feel unsafe? How would anyone, including the student, know that the belief they’ve developed about their “authentic selves” is genuine or legitimate? And how is the importance of parents reflected in the position of the State?
Here's a statement from the ACLU that misrepresents this decision:
‘Rather than focus on ensuring all students receive the best education they can, these efforts seek to exploit lack of familiarity with transgender people, spread misinformation, and disrupt trust within our school communities,’ said Christine Parker, senior staff attorney with the Gender, Sexuality and Reproductive Justice Project at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. ‘This case is part of a nationwide, coordinated attack on trans people and all those who stand up for trans youth.’
If the schools are determined that all students should receive the best education they can, they should be encouraging those who suffer from gender confusion to receive therapy from a reputable therapist. If anyone is spreading misinformation, the guilt lies with the schools since the few studies that have been written regarding gender dysphoria discount its legitimacy.
These efforts to challenge the schools are not made to attack children, but to protect them. Clearly schools are more interested in pursuing their bizarre cultural agendas than in saving our children.
Discussion (22)
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My comment is on the problem that created the reason for the judge's decision. I have not read the judge's opinion, so I have no comment on that.
California schools seem to have completely reversed objectives in the last 30 - 40 years.
Our children attended government ("public") schools in California throughout the decade of the 1990s (they were in elementary and middle school). The schools invited the parents in, and encouraged parents to volunteer in the schools. Mrs. Tabby was a weekly classroom volunteer for several of our children's teachers. My father occasionally volunteered in the school of some of his other grandchildren. The school administrators and teachers constantly used language talking about how the schools wanted to be "partners" with parents in educating the parents' children. And they were clear that the parents were the primary teachers of their children, and the parents had primary responsibility for those children.
We then moved to a different state, so my subsequent information on the California government school activity is based on public pronouncements and regulations from mostly the state department of education, the state attorney general, and the teachers' union.
By the late 2010s those pronouncements and regulations were taking a decidedly different approach and tone than what we had heard in the 1990s. Many of those pronouncements and regulations implied, and often stated explicitly, that the people in charge of "public" schools considered parents to be the enemies of the education system, and not the "partners" that had been touted in the 1990s. Parents and schools were no longer "partners" but antagonists in the education of children.
And the state department of education, the state attorney general, and the teachers' union clearly considered themselves to be the primary controllers of the students, not the parents. The state department of education, the state attorney general, and the teachers' union spoke as though they were the ones who legitimately had the "best" interests of the students in mind. The pronouncements and regulations were often premised on an assumption that the default position was that parents intended harm to their own children, and needed the state and the teachers to protect those children from those harmful parents.
Such state control (or even "ownership") of children (and rejection of parental "ownership" and responsibility) has been for more than a century characteristic of an assortment of authoritarian schemes for government, including fascism, communism, and socialist quasi-communism. A dominant theory is that the state must break the bond between parents and children to be able to properly and fully indoctrinate the children (the next generation) into believing in, and thus supporting, the authoritarian scheme, indoctrination being necessary for the authoritarian government to maintain control.
I blame the growth and ultimate dominance over five or more decades of pro-authoritarian government schemes in "higher education" (colleges and universities), and especially in college departments of education and teacher training, for the widespread anti-parent attitudes that have developed among schools (administrators and teachers). But my blame is not solidly founded in concrete evidence, and is more of an impression from the general atmosphere.
But, yes, I think it is clear that many government schools (California has just been the most explicit in the pronouncements, rules, and regulations from the state department of education and state attorney general) have become anti-parent. A vigorous and sustained counter-offensive will be required if that is to be corrected.
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By the way, in many places early examples of the budding antagonism between the school system and the parents pertained to the schools' desires to assist students in getting abortions and birth control.
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I went to school in CA, too, and as a student, have the same recollection of parents and teachers. Everyone seemed to be working together. No more, and I'm not sure how we bring that back, FST.
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Teachers can't give a student an aspirin without parental approval but can help a student "transition" without parental approval--- proof blue states are looney bins.
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You're being too generous in your description, RH.
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