(The Center Square)—The Orange County Board of Education, representing the third most-populated county in California, and Anderson Union High School District voted to join a lawsuit against AB 1955, a law that bans K-12 schools from notifying parents of students’ gender change requests.
The lawsuit, filed by Liberty Justice Center on behalf of Chino Valley Unified School District and several parents, and now Orange County and Anderson Unified, claims AB 1955 — which prohibits schools from adopting parental notification policies for gender change requests — violates the U.S. Constitution and federal records law.
The lawsuit makes note of transgender students’ increased levels of “psychological, emotional, and physical harassment and abuse” and “abnormally high suicide rates” and claims AB 1955 deprives parents of their right to “make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children,” which LCJ says is a violation of the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment. LCJ also claims the ban violates parents’ First Amendment rights regarding their religious beliefs, and that the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act requires schools that “receive federal funds must guarantee parent access to student education records.”
Chino Valley was the first school district to adopt a parental notification policy requiring parents to be notified within three days if a student is involved in violence, talks about suicide, or requests to identify with or participate in programs or use school facilities that are for a gender different from what is on their birth certificate or official records. Orange County, nearly the second most populated county in the state behind San Diego County, was the largest district to adopt a parental notification policy, while Anderson was one of the first four to do so. Both school district bodies voted unanimously to join the lawsuit.
“I think it is important that we stand with Chino Valley because parents make the best decisions for their children,” said Orange County Board of Education Vice President Mari Barke in a statement. “This is about the type of county, state, and nation we want to be.”
Chino Valley’s policy was partially upheld and blocked by a preliminary injunction through a lawsuit supported by California Attorney General Rob Bonta; the court found the district could continue requiring notification for when a child requests to change any information contained in the student’s official or unofficial records, but that the clauses on requesting to be treated as the other gender or use the sex-segregated programs, activities or facilities of the other gender would be on hold until a full trial. Chino Valley amended its policies after the preliminary injunction to drop the parts of the policy put on hold by the injunction before AB 1955 could take effect.
AB 1955 passed without an urgency clause, meaning it does not go into effect until Jan. 1.