Liberty Justice Center Warns California Attorney General That School Districts Are Violating Parents’ Federal Rights

On June 2, 2026, the Liberty Justice Center sent a letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta warning him that approximately 600 California school districts are violating federal law and the U.S. Constitution by using California’s AB 1955 as an excuse to hide students’ purported gender transitions from their parents.

Parents have a fundamental right under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to direct the upbringing, care, and education of their children. Schools that hide this information from parents unduly burden those constitutional rights.

The Liberty Justice Center’s letter explains that school districts creating and enforcing policies that conceal a child’s request to change his or her name, pronouns, or gender identity at school are violating the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

FERPA guarantees parents the right to access their children’s education records at schools receiving federal funds. Any school-created or school-maintained records concerning a child’s social gender transition are clearly “education records” according to the law and must therefore be made available to parents. The U.S. Department of Education has already found California’s Department of Education to be in violation of FERPA.

The letter makes clear that California cannot undermine those federal protections by hiding behind state laws like AB 1955.

As the Supreme Court made clear more than 200 years ago in McCulloch v. Maryland, federal law and the Constitution supersede conflicting state law. The Supreme Court’s recent order in Mirabelli v. Bonta, in which Attorney General Bonta was a named party, confirms that a conflict with California law does not justify school policies that violate parents’ federal rights.

California’s Attorney General can—and does—know better.

The Liberty Justice Center proudly represents Rocklin Unified School District in a similar case currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. This case underscores that parents have a fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children, and that the state cannot obscure these federal protections through union negotiations or other procedures.

“It’s far past time for California officials and school districts to realize they can’t legally use our kids to conduct gender transition experiments at school,” said Timothy Snowball, Senior Counsel at Liberty Justice Center. “Parents have a right, both legally and morally, to direct their own children’s education. This includes knowing essential information about their health, well-being, and education.”

This letter also marks the launch of the Liberty Justice Center’s Parental Action and Rights Enforcement to ensure Notice, Transparency, and Safety (PARENTS) initiative.

PARENTS is a new initiative to defend parents when government officials and school bureaucrats try to cut them out of decisions about their children.  With attorneys and staff based in California, PARENTS will serve as a legal watchdog and rapid-response litigation initiative for parents, school boards, and communities facing unlawful policies that hide critical information from families.

The Liberty Justice Center is urging Attorney General Bonta to immediately advise the identified California school districts that policies withholding records or information about a student’s gender transition from parents are unconstitutional and illegal. Relatedly, AB 1955 is not a shield for school districts’ unlawful conduct.

A copy of the Liberty Justice Center’s letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta is available here.

More information about the Liberty Justice Center’s new PARENTS initiative is available here.