Court revives lawsuit against Arizona district over parental rights, gender identity

Public schools can be sued if they withhold student gender identity information from their parents, the Arizona Court of Appeals unanimously concluded in a recent ruling.

The case involves a lawsuit against Mesa Public Schools, where a parent identified as Jane Doe accused the district of not informing her after her daughter began using a male name at her junior high school.

“The judges said that there was enough evidence to support the argument that the district had purposely withheld the information from the mother about her child’s sexual and gender identification,” the Arizona Capitol Times reported.

A trial judge had dismissed the lawsuit by arguing “the mother had waited too long to sue after learning of the problem,” according to the news article.

However, the appellate court disagreed by noting “the school did not comply with the mother’s initial requests to the school to stop referring to her daughter by a male name.”

‘The fundamental right of parents’

Much of the court’s reasoning hinged on the Parents’ Bill of Rights, enacted in 2010 by the state Legislature.

In the ruling, Appellate Judge Michael Brown emphasized the bill’s emphasis on “the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing, education, health care and mental health of their children.”

“Doe does not have to wait for additional violations of her fundamental right to parent to file suit,” he said.

The appellate court’s decision has broad repercussions for the district, which enrolled about 57,200 students in the 2023-24 academic year.

“The revived lawsuit opens the door not only for the mother … to have her complaint heard, but it could also force the district to scrap the guidelines and policies it has already adopted,” noted the Arizona Capitol Times.

Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, has been pushing for legislation prohibiting school employees from knowingly using student pronouns “different from the pronoun that aligns with the student’s biological sex,” according to journalists.

“The efforts have been quashed by Gov. Katie Hobbs who called it ‘harmful legislation directed at transgender youth,’” the Arizona Capitol Times wrote. “But the outcome of this case could ​​ultimately make Kavanagh’s legislation unnecessary if the court finds that the Parents’ Bill of Rights already requires parental notification.”

Legislative attempts on a national level

Other lawmakers besides Kavanagh have been working to stop public schools from withholding information about students’ gender identity from their parents.

In one recent example, two Republican senators reintroduced legislation in September called the Empower Parents to Protect Their Kids Act.

“Schools should never be allowed to impose radical, harmful ideologies on children – especially without their parents’ consent,” said one of the senators, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, in a statement. “Our bill protects students and ensures parents are in control of their children’s education. Schools should remain institutions of education, not a place for radical liberal propaganda.”