By TJ Martinell | The Center Square
(Worthy News) – The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of plaintiffs in a lawsuit against a California law that allowed public schools to conceal a student’s “gender transitions” from their parents, a policy SCOTUS ruled likely violates the First and Fourteenth amendments.
The lawsuit filed by the Thomas More Society in 2023 when two Escondido teachers sued the Escondido Unified School District in San Diego County, the California Department of Education and Attorney General Rob Bonta, after they were denied a religious accommodation from school policies that required staff to use students’ preferred pronouns and, upon request.
However, it also required the teachers withhold information about a child’s gender identity from parents.
The state of California managed to pause a permanent injunction via the U.S. Court for Appeals for the 9th Circuit. In response, the Thomas More Society filed an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court, requesting intervention in the lawsuit.
According to the SCOTUS ruling, the parents of a student who later joined in the lawsuit were not told by educators when their daughter began to identity as a boy and use a male name. It was only after she attempted suicide and was hospitalized that the parents were told by doctors she was identifying as a boy at school.
In its 6-3 ruling, SCOTUS’s majority opinion concluded that “the State argues that its policies advance a compelling interest in student safety and privacy. But those policies cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents. The parents who object to the California policies on free exercise grounds are likely to succeed on the merits. The same is true for the subclass of parents who object to those policies on due process grounds.”
In a press release statement, Thomas More Society Special Counsel Paul M. Jonna wrote that “this is a watershed moment for parental rights in America. “The Supreme Court has told California and every state in the nation in no uncertain terms: you cannot secretly transition a child behind a parent’s back. The Court’s landmark reaffirmation of substantive due process, its vindication of religious liberty, and its approval of class-wide relief together set a historic precedent that will dismantle secret gender transition policies across the country.”
Similar laws in Washington state have been legally challenged and upheld by the 9th Circuit.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest Stories from Worthy News
The U.S. State Department on Monday urged Americans to immediately depart more than a dozen Middle Eastern nations as the war with Iran entered its third day and regional security conditions deteriorated.
Israel announced Monday that it eliminated the head of Hezbollah’s intelligence apparatus in an overnight strike on Beirut, as Lebanon’s government declared it would move to prohibit the terror group’s military activities following a dramatic escalation along the northern border.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is forcefully rejecting claims that the United States and Israel are entering into a prolonged conflict with Iran, declaring that the current military campaign will be swift and decisive.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of plaintiffs in a lawsuit against a California law that allowed public schools to conceal a student’s “gender transitions” from their parents, a policy SCOTUS ruled likely violates the First and Fourteenth amendments.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom President Donald J. Trump calls “secretary of war,” said Monday that Operation Epic Fury against Iran was “the most lethal, most complex, and most precise aerial operation in history,” though he declined to rule out the possibility of American ground forces becoming involved.