A March 2 emergency ruling by the Supreme Court has halted California’s ability to enforce California Assembly Bill 1955, which prohibits schools from disclosing student gender identities to parents without student consent.
According to Robert Andrade, Palo Alto Unified School District’s civil rights and legal affairs coordinator, school policy remains unchanged as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determines the ruling’s scope, which may include specific exceptions.
“They [the Supreme Court] issued a ruling without knowing the full implications in school districts, and generally the consensus around California is ‘Don’t do anything, don’t do anything, don’t change anything until the State of California tells you what to do,’” Andrade said.
According to the emergency appeal, Mirabelli v. Bonta, two California middle school teachers sued Escondido Union School District seeking an exemption from district rules that prohibited them from disclosing a student’s gender identity. The district claimed that state law required the adoption of these policies, so state officials were added as defendants and were joined by parents as plaintiffs.
In the appeal, parents argued that the policy violated their parental rights, and teachers argued it infringed upon their religious freedom, which falls under the First and 14th Amendments.
Andrade said that within the context of Mirabelli v. Bonta, parents directed their questions to the school administration.
“It [the ruling] says that the school must disclose to the parents upon request,” Andrade said. “It doesn’t say that the teacher has to be the person to disclose.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett stated in her concurring opinion that California’s nondisclosure policy excludes parents from highly important decisions about their child’s mental health.
“One set of parents learned of their child’s transition at school only after the child attempted suicide,” Barrett stated. “School administrators continued to withhold information about the student’s gender identification.”
Justice Elena Kagan stated in her dissenting opinion that the court acted prematurely without full judicial review.
“Today’s decision shows, not for the first time, how our emergency docket can malfunction,” Kagan stated. “The Court receives scant and, frankly, inadequate briefing about the legal issues in dispute. … In granting emergency relief, the Court cannot even wait for an appellate court to conclude its own process for deciding the identical issue.”