Federal court affirms parents have constitutional right to opt out of trans ideology in schools
“Parents have a Constitutionally protected liberty interest in the care, custody, and control of their children, including their education.”
A federal court recently sided with a group of parents who had found to their horror the local school district had no means to allow them to opt their children out of radical transgender ideology.
The lawsuit was filed after Pennsylvania teacher Megan Williams subjected her first grade students to a celebration of “Transgender Awareness Day” by reading the little ones story books about transgender identity and “transitioning.”
Williams, who The Blaze notes is a Black Lives Matter activist and also subjected her own first grade child to a “gender transition,” also went as far as to tell her students that parents make a “guess” as to whether a child is a boy or girl – and could have been wrong.
In one of the story books she read to the children, parents tell their “transitioning” child, "When you were born, we didn't know you were going to be our son. We made some mistakes, but you helped us fix them."
In 2022, three parents of Williams’ students filed a lawsuit along with the Alliance Defending Freedom against the teacher, school district, and district officials seeking a moratorium on "on gender dysphoria and transgender transitioning" as well as “parental notice and opt-out rights on the topic absent such a prohibition; compensatory damages; and punitive damages.”
Judge Joy Conti of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania sided with the parents last week, writing that “parents have a constitutional right to reasonable and realistic advance notice and the ability to opt their elementary-age children of noncurricular instruction on transgender topics and to not have requirements for notice and opting out of those topics that are more stringent than those for other sensitive topics.”
"A teacher instructing first-graders and reading books to show that their parents' beliefs about their children's gender identity may be wrong directly repudiates parental authority. Williams' conduct struck at the heart of Plaintiffs' own families and their relationship with their own young children,” she also wrote.
"The students' confusion in this case illustrates how difficult it is for a first-grader when a teacher's instruction conflicts with their Parents' religious and moral beliefs," the judge continued. "The heart of parental authority on matters of the greatest importance within their own family is undermined when a teacher tells first-graders their parents may be wrong about whether the student is a boy or a girl."
Judge Conti continued that Williams’ actions "showed intolerance and disrespect for the religious or moral beliefs and authority of the Parents."
This is a very important legal victory for parents! Thank God for judges who are willing to uphold constitutional rights — and for parents who are willing to fight for them.
Nice win !