Moms for Liberty sues Chathams school district over transgender student policy

Moms for Liberty has filed a federal lawsuit challenging a Chatham school district policy that allows school employees to withhold information about a student’s gender identity from their parents.

The lawsuit, filed by the Thomas More Society in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, alleges that the School District of the Chathams Board of Education’s Policy 5145.7 violates parents’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

Under the policy, according to the lawsuit, school counselors may decide not to tell parents that their child has adopted a different gender identity.  The policy also requires the use of a student’s chosen name and pronouns without parental notice or consent.

The suit further challenges provisions allowing students to participate in sports and use locker rooms and changing facilities based on their stated gender identity.  It alleges that students and parents may face discipline for refusing to use a classmate’s chosen name or pronouns, including for speech outside school.

The plaintiffs also contend that students may be referred to outside LGBTQ advocacy organizations without their parents’ knowledge or permission.

The Thomas More Society said the district declined to rescind or revise the policy after being notified of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Mirabelli v. Bonta and Mahmoud v. Taylor.

“When Thomas More Society prevailed at the Supreme Court, we made a promise: any school board or district that kept hiding a child’s so-called ‘gender transition’ from parents, or that punished kids for refusing to bow down to an ideology they don’t believe, would be held accountable,” said Christopher Ferrara, senior counsel at the Thomas More Society.

According to the complaint, school board President Ann Ciccarelli said at a June 15 meeting that “the United States Supreme Court decision, Mirabelli, is not binding on public school districts in New Jersey.”

“The Chathams Board of Education had every opportunity to fix this policy,” Ferrara said.  “Instead, its own president stood up at a public meeting and told parents that Supreme Court precedent simply doesn’t apply to them.  That is not a legal argument; it is defiance of the law of the land. And we intend to hold this district accountable in federal court.”

Moms for Liberty is asking the court to declare the policy unconstitutional and block its enforcement unless it is amended to require parental notice and consent before a student changes names or pronouns, socially transitions, participates in mixed-sex sports, uses facilities based on gender identity, or is referred to an outside advocacy organization.