Michaela Estruth | March 3, 2026
(The Lion)
The U.S. Supreme Court protected parental rights in a “landmark” preliminary ruling Monday – prohibiting schools from socially transitioning children in secret.
The ruling answered an emergency application from the Thomas More Society asking the court to intervene in Mirabelli v. Bonta, a case in California where schools are aiding and concealing children’s gender transitions from their parents, according to a press release.
“No more can bureaucrats secretly facilitate a child’s gender transition while shutting out parents,” Thomas More Society Executive Vice President Peter Breen said in a statement. “California built a wall of secrecy between parents and their own children, and the Supreme Court just tore it down. This groundbreaking ruling will protect parents’ rights to raise their children as they see fit for years to come.”
The case considers California laws that require schools to conceal children’s gender transitions from their parents. One family discovered their daughter’s social transition after she attempted suicide, according to the court opinion.
A district court in California ruled for the parents, but the state appealed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit removed the newly established parental rights protections, allowing schools to continue the secret transitions.
Thomas More Society submitted an emergency application to the Supreme Court, asking the court to reinstate parental protections while the case proceeds before the Ninth Circuit.
The high court found California’s laws “cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents,” according to the opinion.
“These policies likely violate parents’ rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children,” the opinion reads.
The court ruled 6-3 to protect parental rights based on both the First and Fourteenth Amendments, marking “the most significant parental rights ruling in a generation,” according to the society.
The free exercise clause of the First Amendment recognizes parents’ right to “guide the religious development of their children,” the Liberty Justice Center explained in a statement provided to The Lion. The Fourteenth Amendment protects parents’ liberty to “direct the upbringing, education, and mental health decisions of their children,” according to the center.
“The Supreme Court’s decision in Mirabelli v. Bonta confirms what Liberty Justice Center has been building toward for years: parental rights are fundamental constitutional rights, and states cannot sideline parents in decisions of profound moral, psychological, and religious consequence,” Liberty Justice Chairman Sara Albrecht told The Lion in a statement.
While the Court’s ruling is not a “final merits decision,” the opinion provides a glimpse into the highest court’s view of the issue, the center explained, and suggests parents are likely to win as the case continues before the Ninth Circuit.
“The Court relied on nearly a century of precedent holding that parents have a fundamental liberty interest in directing the upbringing and education of their children,” the center said. “This decision sends a strong signal to every state and school district considering or implementing secrecy policies.”
Additionally, the court referenced its recent Mahmoud v. Taylor decision, issued in June 2025, which required schools to inform parents of LGBTQ storybooks in the classroom and allow them to remove their children from that instruction. The court said “the intrusion on parents’ free exercise rights” in Mirabelli “is greater” than in the Mahmoud case, setting a precedent that “puts every secret gender transition policy in America on notice,” the Thomas More Society said.
“The message from the Supreme Court is clear: parental rights are not optional, and they are not subject to bureaucratic override,” Liberty Justice Center’s Albrecht said. “They are protected by the Constitution – and we will continue leading the fight to ensure those protections are fully enforced in California and nationwide.”
To read this article on The Lion, click here.
To read more about the Liberty Justice Center’s amicus brief for this case, click here.