(WASHINGTON, D.C.)—The Liberty Justice Center and the California Justice Center have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Rocklin Unified School District v. Public Employment Relations Board, a case challenging an improper finding by California’s state labor board that Rocklin Unified School District’s parental notification policy was unlawful. The petition asks the Court to protect parents’ fundamental right to direct their children’s upbringing and to clarify that government agencies lack authority to invalidate policies that protect citizens’ constitutional rights under the guise of enforcing labor law.
On September 6, 2023, the Rocklin Unified School District adopted a Parental Notification Policy, which grants parents of students in the District the right to be notified if their child requests to be identified as a gender other than the child’s biological sex, requests to use a name or pronouns that do not align with the child’s biological sex or requests access to sex-segregated programs, activities, bathrooms, or changing facilities that do not align with the child’s biological sex. In response, the Rocklin Teachers Professional Organization filed an unfair labor practice charge with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), seeking to force the district to revoke the policy.
After a PERB administrative law judge ruled in favor of the union, the Board affirmed and ordered the district to rescind the policy. The Rocklin Unified School District then appealed, and the Liberty Justice Center stepped in to defend the district’s policy at no cost to the district or taxpayers. The California Court of Appeal summarily affirmed, and the California Supreme Court denied review without opinion, effectively deferring to PERB’s holding. This raises a critical question: Does California’s PERB system, where PERB almost always rules in favor of the union, and which requires no judicial oversight, violate the due process rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment—particularly where those decisions affect protected constitutional rights?
The cert petition asks the U.S. Supreme Court to grant review in order to hold that PERB’s findings invalidating Rocklin Unified School District’s parental notification policy violate the substantive due process rights of parents to raise their children and decide how to handle health care issues and to clarify that a state labor board may not make decisions affecting parental constitutional rights under the guise of enforcing labor law.
“PERB has the authority to resolve labor disputes, not issues of constitutional law,” said Katie Cosgrove, Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center. “Allowing this decision to stand would set a dangerous precedent in California, essentially giving unions the green light to violate constitutional rights by framing their challenges as mere labor disputes. And when it comes to parents’ right to be informed about their child’s mental health, that is too great a risk to ignore.”
The case raises issues of nationwide importance as states and school districts across the country continue to debate whether schools may withhold information from parents about a child’s social gender transition at school. Most recently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of parental rights in California and against secret social transitioning in schools in Mirabelli v. Bonta. The Liberty Justice Center now asks the Court to do the same here. Parents—not government officials, unions, or school employees—retain the primary right and responsibility to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children.
Rocklin Unified School District v. Public Employment Relations Board was filed in the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, on February 26, 2025, and case filings are available here.