Maryland parents don’t have standing to challenge a school district’s transgender policy if their children aren’t transgender, an appeals court ruled on Aug. 14.
“Thus, under the Constitution, they have not alleged the type of injury required to show standing,” Judge Quattlebaum added.
The judge was sitting on a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that considered the case after parents appealed a dismissal of their lawsuit.
The parents had challenged a policy started by Montgomery County’s school district in 2020 that lets students transition without alerting the students’ parents.
Judge Quattlebaum was joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Allison Jones Rushing. Both judges were appointed under President Donald Trump.
U.S. Circuit Judge Paul Niemeyer, appointed under Republican former President George H.W. Bush, dissented.
“The majority reads the parents’ complaint in this case in an unfairly narrow way and thus denies the parents the ability to obtain relief, concluding that the parents have no standing to challenge the guidelines until they learn that their own children are actually considering gender transition,” Judge Niemeyer wrote in the dissent.
“In reaching that conclusion, the majority is, I submit, unnecessarily subjecting the parents by default to a mandatory policy that pulls the discussion of gender issues from the family circle to the public schools without any avenue of redress by the parents,” he added.
Judge Quattlebaum said the dissent only detailed harms that occur after a child identifies as transgender or gender nonconforming, which doesn’t provide standing.
The decision was not correct, according to Steven Fitschen, president of the National Legal Foundation, which is representing the parents.
“Parents have a right to object to the policy at issue in this case because it allows the schools to keep secret from parents how they are treating their children at school. This is a clear violation of parental rights,” Mr. Fitschen told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.
“Parents do not have to wait until they find out that damage has been done in secret before they can object. Furthermore, the very existence of the policy affects family dynamics, as Judge Niemeyer also pointed out. We are actively considering next steps in the legal process,” he added.
Montgomery County officials did not respond to a request for comment.
The suit was brought by parents who said they wouldn’t know if their students were transitioned in school and that irreparable harm might happen before they became aware. They said that the policy was a violation of Maryland and federal laws, as well as the state and federal constitutions.
The policy in question is titled the “guidelines for student gender identity in Montgomery County Public Schools.”
The policy says that students “have a right to privacy,” including “the right to keep private one’s transgender status or gender nonconforming presentation at school.”
Information about a student’s transgender status may be considered confidential medical information and disclosing it to parents may violate laws, the policy states. That applies even if parents ask.
The guidelines also let staffers, regardless of qualification, assist students in evaluating their gender identity in a process that is also designed to keep the information secret from most or all parents.
Staffers are directed in the system to use the students’ new name in school but to use their birth name when the parents are around.
The policy violates, among other laws, the Maryland Family Law, which says that parents are “jointly and severally responsible” for their child’s “support, care, nurture, welfare, and education,” the parents alleged in their suit.
Montgomery County defendants argued that the parents were mistaken in their beliefs about parental rights.
“Plaintiffs’ claims proceed from a fundamentally mistaken premise, which is that parents have an unfettered right to direct how their children will be treated while at school,” district officials said in one filing.
“The guidelines recognize that many parents will be supportive of transgender and gender nonconforming children, and when that is so, the guidelines welcome the involvement of parents. But that is unfortunately not always the case, and some students experience parental rejection—and worse—when their gender identity is revealed to their parents,” they added. “The guidelines do nothing more than recognize that fact and provide professional educators with guidance for how to exercise their professional judgment in navigating that complex situation. Contrary to plaintiffs’ claims, a public school is not legally or constitutionally required to reveal information to a parent that could put a student in danger.”
U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm, appointed under President Barack Obama, dismissed the suit in 2022, leading to the appeal.
Judge Grimm said that because the guidelines included language such as “the needs of each student must be assessed on a case-by-case basis,” they were designed to “carefully balance the interests of both the parents and students, encouraging parental input when the student consents, but avoiding it when the student expresses concern that parents would not be supportive, or that disclosing their gender identity to their parents may put them in harm’s way.”
The judge also said that empowering school personnel to withhold student records from parents might violate state regulations but that a private challenge of the guidelines was not allowed under Maryland law.
