California takes center stage in battle over parental rights
Dear John,
State Attorney General Rob Bonta has declared war on California parents and local school boards, but it’s all hot air. Despite Bonta’s media blitz this week, the law is not on his side — and he knows it.
Bonta hit the airwaves Wednesday to tout a court “victory” that was actually just a litigation strategy “gotcha.” Last week, the attorney general filed an ex parte motion asking the San Bernardino Superior Court to block the Chino Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) from implementing the parental notification policy it approved in July. By filing the motion a few days before Labor Day weekend, the attorney general left little time for CVUSD attorneys to respond and even less time for the judge to read the legal briefs.
Judge Thomas Garza admitted at the beginning of Wednesday’s hearing that he had received “a phone book of opposition” to Bonta’s motion and did not have time to “fully read” the school district’s response.
Not surprisingly, Judge Garza granted the attorney general's motion for a temporary restraining order until he can consider the legal arguments in full. The next hearing is scheduled for October 13.
“The attorney general’s lawsuit is a political gimmick to intimidate school boards, nothing more,” said Lance Christensen, Vice President of Education Policy and Government Affairs at California Policy Center. “Bonta is using the power of his office to scare other school boards that are considering adopting parental rights policies. They should not be intimidated.”
And they haven’t been. The Rocklin Unified School Board voted 4-1 to approve a parental notification policy late Wednesday, just hours after Bonta's press offensive. And hundreds of parents came out to support the Orange Unified School District’s parental notification policy before the school board passed it Thursday, despite opposition from the local teachers union.
It’s no surprise that the teachers unions are aggressively campaigning against parents' rights, but how is it in the best interest of their members to encourage teachers to keep secrets from parents?
As Lance Christensen explained in his public comment before the Rocklin Unified School Board Wednesday, “When the trust is broken between a teacher and a parent … it’s very difficult to get it back.”
So just what is in Bonta’s court filing? A whole lot of balderdash. Bonta asked the court to stop CVUSD from implementing the parental notification policy on the grounds that it was discriminatory against, and violated the privacy rights of, transgender and non-binary minors in K-12 schools.
But CVUSD’s policy does not prohibit students from changing their name or pronouns, or participating in sex-segregated school activities or using school facilities that do not match their sex at birth.
It simply requires that district schools notify parents if their child is choosing to do so.
In reality, Bonta’s lawsuit “cites ‘reports’ and ‘studies’ but no legal cases,” reports the intrepid Katy Grimes in an epic takedown of the attorney general’s motion.
That’s because the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed parents’ constitutional rights to direct the upbringing, care and education of their children. Children do not have privacy rights from their parents and government schools cannot keep secrets from parents. Period.
Another important development last week? News broke that the Spreckels Union School District in Monterey County has settled for $100,000 with Jessica Konen, a courageous mother who sued the district after her 11-year old daughter was “being identified as a male and socially transitioning without her knowledge” at school. Konen was represented by legal powerhouse Harmeet Dhillon, founder of the Center for American Liberty.
The settlement is a landmark victory for parental rights. It puts school districts on notice that they can and will be sued by parents if school officials keep secrets from parents about a students’ gender change.
“School boards have a fiduciary duty to the voters who elected them to not expose their school district to lawsuits brought by parents,” Christensen explained. “Parents have the Supreme Court, the 14th Amendment, and more than a century of jurisprudence on their side.”
“Ultimately parents will prevail,” Christensen said.
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