WASHINGTON | August 4, 2026 – Today, the Liberty Justice Center sent letters to the attorneys general of New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Washington, warning that school districts’ decisions to withhold information regarding students’ purported gender transitions from their parents violate the U.S. Constitution and federal law. School districts that create or enforce policies that conceal a child’s request to change names, pronouns or gender identity at school may violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as well as the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
The Liberty Justice Center’s letters make clear that schools that hide this information from parents burden their constitutional rights and risk legal action to enforce those rights. Parents have a fundamental right under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to direct the upbringing, care and education of their children. This includes access to vital information regarding their children’s mental health.
Furthermore, FERPA guarantees parents the right to access their children’s education records at schools that receive federal funds. The law defines “education records” as records that “contain information directly related to a student” and are “maintained by an educational agency or institution.” Any school-created or school-maintained records concerning a child’s social gender transition would therefore constitute “education records” and must be made available to the child’s parents.
The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Mirabelli v. Bonta recognized that the parents were likely to succeed on their federal constitutional claims and restored injunctive relief protecting the parent class while the case proceeds on appeal. By maintaining policies that require schools to conceal students’ social gender transitions from their parents, these states risk violating federal law. They should not wait for courts to force their compliance.
“By withholding information from parents regarding their children, these school districts are violating federal law, not to mention basic morality,” said Timothy Snowball, Senior Counsel at Liberty Justice Center. “Parents have the fundamental right to direct their children’s upbringing, and these attorneys general must comply with federal law or face possible legal action.”
The Liberty Justice Center calls on the attorneys general of these states to immediately notify their school districts that withholding records or information about a student’s gender transition from the student’s parents is unconstitutional and illegal. These letters are the latest effort under the Liberty Justice Center’s PARENTS initiative, which defends parents when government officials and school bureaucrats try to cut them out of decisions about their children.
The Liberty Justice Center has previously sent a similar letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta. A copy of that letter is available here.
Copies of the Liberty Justice Center’s demand letters to the four attorneys general are available here: New York; New Jersey; Illinois; and Washington.
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