America First Legal, Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty Ask SCOTUS to Permit Parents to Defend Their Children Against Radical School Administrators
Jun 5, 2024
WASHINGTON, D.C. – America First Legal (AFL) and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) have filed a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari with the Supreme Court of the United States in ongoing litigation against the Eau Claire Area School District (ECASD) in Wisconsin. ECASD has a policy of concealing the gender transition of students from their parents. Over 1,000 school districts nationwide, encompassing nearly 11 million students, have similar policies.
Federal courts have dismissed challenges to these policies on the grounds that parents who object are not injured unless their child has undergone a secret gender transition. AFL represents Parents Protecting Our Children, an organization comprising parents within the ECASD district affected by this policy. The district court and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case before it could be litigated on its merits, ruling that the parents were not injured.
AFL contends that this interpretation is inconsistent with legal principles regarding "standing" and results in situations where parents cannot challenge such policies until after their children have been harmed. AFL seeks Supreme Court intervention to ensure that when a school district enacts a policy removing parental decision-making authority over significant health-related decisions while concealing them from parents, parents can seek recourse through the courts to affirm fundamental parental rights.
There have been approximately 30 similar cases, with courts generally finding that parents are not "injured" and thus cannot maintain claims. AFL argues this represents a failure of the federal judiciary to protect parental rights. The Supreme Court has previously recognized parental rights as “perhaps the oldest fundamental liberty interest.”
Nicholas R. Barry, Senior Litigation Counsel at America First Legal, stated: “The idea that a parent is not injured when a government official has the authority through a written policy to socially transition a child to another sex and hide it from parents is simply disconnected from reality. Parents of nearly 11 million students have no way to protect their children from the predation of perverted government officials who pretend to love the parent’s children more than them. A parent is left with only one effective way to protect their children: remove them from public school. Not every parent has that option. The federal courts should step in and protect parental rights and put these school administrators on notice that the era of usurping parental rights is at an end.”