Massachusetts’ Ludlow Public Schools did not infringe upon parents’ rights with a policy that required students’ consent to notify their parents if they preferred using a different name or pronouns at school, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.
The decision in Foote v. Ludlow School Committee upholds a district court’s dismissal of the case, stating that the U.S. Supreme Court's "parental rights cases have never described an asserted right by reference to the specific conduct at issue.” Instead, the Supreme Court has "considered whether the conduct at issue fell within the broader, well-established parental right to direct the upbringing of one's child."
The lawsuit brought by parents Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri claimed the district’s policy violated their constitutional rights to direct the upbringing of their children under the 14th Amendment.
One of their children, who attended Baird Middle School in the district at age 11 in the 2020-21 school year and was born a girl, had come out to school staff as genderqueer and asked to be identified by a different name and preferred pronouns in school. Their other child, who was 12 at the time, had also begun using a preferred name and pronouns under the same district policy, but the 1st Circuit’s decision noted that few details about the sibling were provided in the lawsuit.
In their 46-page decision, the judges wrote that the parents failed to make the case that the school district violated their right to direct medical treatment for their child by providing treatment without their knowledge or consent. The parents had argued that educators performed “psychosocial” treatment in the form of “social transitioning” by granting their child’s request to use a preferred name and pronouns.
While parents have the right to direct their children's medical treatment, the judges wrote, “the allegations here do not involve clinical conduct at all.”
Furthermore, the judges said decisions made by school staff on how to reasonably meet diverse student needs did not infringe upon the parents’ rights, because the Supreme Court “has never suggested that parents have the right to control a school's curricular or administrative decisions.”
The Child and Parental Rights Campaign, which represented Foote and Silvestri in the case, is considering appealing the case to the Supreme Court, according to Reuters.
The Supreme Court has in recent years declined to hear several other cases related to transgender student issues. In December, it rejected a case in which a group of parents challenged a Wisconsin school district’s enforcement of administrative guidance for student gender identity support plans. It has also punted on several cases involving transgender students’ bathroom access.
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