The parents win, finally

Imagine being at home as the day winds down and receiving a telephone call from a hospital emergency room nurse. After determining that you are the parent of one of the hospital’s new patients, she informs you that your daughter was admitted a few moments ago following what appears to have been an attempted suicide.

I had that experience several years ago, twice, once too close to family for comfort, not my daughter, and the other a coworker. I can hardly believe how much worse it would have been if it had been my daughter.

The first thing they surely would have asked the nurse was, is she all right? And the nurse probably said, yes but you better get down here as soon as you can.

When the parents arrived at the hospital ER, the attending doctor informed them that their daughter had experienced gender confusion and the school she attended allowed her to socially transition to present as a boy. It appears she had some kind of crisis that led her to try to take her life. Maybe the crisis arose, I’m thinking as I read the decision, because the school kept the whole thing secret from the parents and the child was conflicted about that.

Child sexual predators act just like this when they tell the child, “just don’t tell your parents about this.” I found this statement of what we know to be the case from a parent on a podcast, “When I was a kid, one of the first things I heard about adults is if any adult asks you as a child to keep a secret, there’s something wrong with that adult, and you need to come tell me immediately.” Oblivious to all that is obvious, the California State Legislature nevertheless adopted a statute that barred schools from informing the parents when their child adopts a new gender expression, and Governor ‘look at my hair’ Newsom signed the bill.

Their child was an Eighth grader, and the parents knew nothing about what had been happening at school. When they confronted the school principal, they learned the school district had a newly adopted policy of: (1) school-wide recognition of a student’s newly expressed gender identification, and (2) when communicating with a student’s parents, an enforced requirement of faculty confidentiality and non-disclosure regarding a student’s newly expressed gender identification.

The child may adopt a newly expressed gender identification by changing her name or using the boy’s bathroom or insisting on the use of pronouns that were inconsistent with their sex at birth. In this Alice in Wonderland world where Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall and said to Alice “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less,” a boy must be addressed as she or her, and a girl must be addressed as he or him. All depending on the child’s whim at the time.

The parents knew nothing about it because the new policy was not discussed at a public school board meeting, it was not considered by the district’s Board of Trustees, and it was not widely circulated to all staff. It was adopted by school district administrative staff, without fanfare, and without opportunity for parental or public input.

These facts, and more, were set out in the US Supreme Court’s recent decision in Mirabelli v Bonta. Keeping secrets is bad enough. But there’s more. One parent said that when they asked the educators about it, the educators lied and denied what in fact was happening with their child at school.

The lawsuit started when two educators in the Encinitas Unified School District (EUSD), north of San Diego, CA sued the district in federal court. The plaintiffs were experienced, well-qualified, teachers who held sincere religious beliefs that communications with a parent about a student should be accurate, and communications should not be calculated to deceive or mislead a student’s parent. The teachers also asserted that parents enjoy a federal constitutional right to make decisions about the care and upbringing of their children.

The teachers alleged a well-founded fear of adverse employment action should they violate the EUSD gender identification confidentiality policy by communicating accurately to a student’s parents her own observations or concerns, as a teacher, about the student’s gender incongruence. They alleged the district policy violated their fundamental rights to religious liberty.

The case was assigned to District Judge Roger T. Benitez, and California Attorney General Bonta intervened to support the district and advance the state’s belief the students’ right of privacy outweighed the parents right to be informed about their children’s health.

Initially, in 2023 Judge Benitez granted the teachers a preliminary injunction to stop the school district’s disciplinary proceedings. Since then, the suit was converted to a class action suit on behalf two classes: all parents who object to the policies depriving them of knowledge their children were confused about their gender and all teachers who asserted a violation of their constitutional rights to belief and free speech. And the parties completed discovery including depositions of the parties and expert witnesses.

Concluding there were no genuine issues of material fact, on December 22, 2025 Judge Benitez granted the parents and teachers summary judgment on all issues. For the non-lawyer readers, a summary judgment is proper only if there are no disputed issues of fact. In that case the only issue is whether the law applies to grant any relief.

The summary judgment granted an injunction that prevented the schools from misleading parents about their children’s gender at school and their social transitioning efforts. It also required the schools to follow the parents’ directions regarding their children’s names and pronouns. The judge found that a child’s gender dysphoria was a mental health issue and he ruled the parental rights to decide issues concerning the health, upbringing and welfare of the children were Constitutional rights of long-standing precedent.

California appealed and as might have been expected, on January 5, 2026 the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the injunction, mostly on procedural grounds, including the absurd assertion the parents did not have standing to seek any relief. The state of California did not argue there were any disputes over the facts. On January 8, 2026, the plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court, where the case was considered on the emergency docket. This case moved very quickly though the appellate process.

On March 2, 2026, the Supreme Court overruled the 9^th Circuit, 6-3, and reinstated the trial judge’s injunction at least as it applied to the parents. The gist of the ruling says:

Under long-established precedent, parents—not the State—have primary authority with respect to “the upbringing and education of children.” citing Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 534– 535 (1925).

This simple and straight forward proposition is being litigated in approximately 40 cases around the country. In my view, the progressive agenda to replace the family as an alleged location of oppression is finally being resisted.

Justice Barrett wrote a concurring opinion in which she raised the issue of whether the rules of substantive due process were at issue. Substantive due process arises from the 5^th Amendment of the US Constitution, which says in part no person can “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” These words have been deployed to import into the Constitution rights not otherwise enumerated in the Constitution. Considerable legal scholarship, including several dissents of Justice Clarence Thomas, argues there is no such thing as “substantive” due process because the 5^th Amendment was concerned only with what process was due and not what rights may be inferred.

Those of us on the conservative side of these arguments must admit the Constitution says nothing about parental rights. And as Hamlet once said,

To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub.

Justice Kagan wrote for the dissent. She complained about the need to move so quickly, and, citing Justice Thomas in other cases she noticed the substantive due process issue may present a problem in the future.

Constitutional Law was a two-semester course at law school. On the first day of the first semester the professor, who was once a Catholic priest, told us not to bother buying the textbook because Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe was about to publish the only text we needed to own. I never did buy his book and have come to know of Tribe as an idiot ideologue.

On the last day of the second semester, our professor said something like, “we haven’t spent any time on this, but you should be aware there is a difference between procedural and substantive due process.” No kidding, would you mind saying more about it?

In the final analysis, I don’t care what rule is applied as long as we get the government out of our families’ business and the educators return to educating the children and cease indoctrinating them in their latest favorite social theory.