On July 16, the Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit challenging California Assembly Bill 1955 (AB 1955), newly-enacted legislation that would prohibit schools from adopting parental notification policies.
On May 22, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond joined the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus to propose AB 1955, legislation prohibiting parental notification policies across California. AB 1955 aims to prohibit schools from adopting parental notification policies that require school administrators to inform parents if their children ask to be referred to by a name or pronouns that differ from their gender at birth or to access sex-segregated school programs or bathrooms for the opposite gender. AB 1955 would also overturn existing parental notification policies and strengthen policies that require school employees to keep secrets from parents.
On July 15, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law. Unless the Court intervenes, AB 1955 will go into effect on January 1, 2025.
Today, the Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit to challenge the legislation and defend Californian parents’ rights. The Liberty Justice Center’s lawsuit—filed on behalf of the Chino Valley Unified School District and several Californian parents with children in the state’s public school system—asks the Court to bar California from implementing AB 1955 because the legislation violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments as well as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
“PK-12 minor students, most of whom are too young to drive, vote, or provide medical consent for themselves, are also too young to make life-altering decisions about their expressed gender identity without their parents’ knowledge. But that is precisely what AB 1955 enables—with potentially devastating consequences for children too young to fully comprehend them,” said Emily Rae, Senior Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center.
“School officials do not have the right to keep secrets from parents, but parents do have a constitutional right to know what their minor children are doing at school. Parents are the legal guardians of their children, not Governor Newsom, Attorney General Bonta, or Superintendent Thurmond. We will continue to defend parents’ rights and children’s well-being by challenging invasive laws like AB 1955 in court, at no cost to taxpayers,” continued Rae.
Chino Valley Unified School District v. Newsom was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California on July 16, 2024.
The legal filings in Chino Valley Unified School District v. Newsom are available here.