(The Center Square)—A parental rights group and two constitutional liberty groups have filed “friend of the court” briefs in a case involving a Florida family suing a school district over the “social” transition of their daughter without their knowledge or approval.
The case, Littlejohn v. School Board of Leon County, involved a 13-year-old girl that the girls’ parents, January and Jeffrey Littlejohn, says was “socially transitioned” without their consent to a boy after school officials met privately with the child about using a new name and pronouns.
A three-judge panel from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta sided with the school district on March 12, but the parents are requesting the 12-member court to hear the case in full, known as en banc.
The panel said in its majority decision that “Under these circumstances, even if the Littlejohns felt that defendants’ efforts to help their child were misguided or wrong, the mere fact that the school officials acted contrary to the Littlejohns’ wishes does not mean that their conduct ‘shocks the conscience’ in a constitutional sense.”
The “shock the conscience” standard is often used in due process cases and refers to egregious and unjust actions that violate principles of fairness and decency.
Three groups have filed amicus briefs in support of the parents’ position.
The American Parents Coalition, a parental rights group, argues that parents have a “substantial due process right to be informed about the medical treatments a school administers to their minor child and right to refuse those medical treatments.”
The brief also reads that “The local school board plausibly violated the requirements of substantive due process when it started a minor child on the road to gender transition without the knowledge and consent of the child’s parents by providing medical counseling and guidance to the child.”
The Liberty Justice Center, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty and Dr. Erica Anderson, PhD., also filed an amicus brief in support of the full court taking up the case.
“To summarize, no professional association recommends that teachers and school officials, who have no expertise whatsoever in these issues, should facilitate a social transition while at school, treating minors as if they are really the opposite sex, in secret from their parents. Usurping the parents in this way is conscience-shocking.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom also filed a brief with the court, saying “When a school intentionally and covertly contravenes parents’ express instructions not to socially transition their child to another gender — a controversial psychosocial intervention — the school’s actions shock the conscience.”