Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) joined a coalition of organizations in supporting January Littlejohn’s case fighting her Florida school district over unlawfully and secretively transitioning her child’s gender without her knowledge or consent. When Littlejohn’s daughter was only thirteen years old, she and her husband learned that their daughter’s school had secret conversations with her about her gender identity, began using alternative names and pronouns that did not align with her biological sex, and concealed all of these actions from them, her parents.
The school did all of this in accordance with the district’s LGBTQ+ Support Guide, which encouraged administrators to exclude parents from decisions about the upbringing of their own children. To justify its policy which encroaches on a parent’s relationship with their children and fundamental right to direct their upbringing, the school district reasoned, without any actual evidence, that notifying parents about a child’s gender identity could be dangerous to the child’s mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing.
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The Littlejohns sued the school district in federal court for violating their parental rights and family privacy. The court held that hiding their daughter’s transition did not violate their rights because the school district’s actions did not “shock the conscience.” A panel of judges on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling, reasoning that even if the government intentionally violated the Littlejohns’ constitutional rights, they had to show how the school district’s conduct “shocks the conscience.” It found that the school district did not act maliciously or cause the child physical harm, so its actions were lawful.
Other courts have held that a plaintiff must show either that the government violated their constitutional rights or that its actions shocked the conscience, but not both. For this reason, they are asking the entire Eleventh Circuit to rehear the case.
As SLF and amici explain in their brief supporting the Littlejohns’ petition, “The Guidance’s utter disregard for the authority of parents is inconsistent with the most basic moral norms upon which our society is based.” Parents have a fundamental right to raise their children how they see fit. Schools, arms of the government, cannot usurp parental authority and undermine the values parents want to instill in their children.
The school district’s policy not only violates our laws and Constitution, but it also offends all common sense. Schools must notify parents before giving a student medication, before putting Neosporin on a scrape, and even if they give a child an ice pack. Yet in the Littlejohns’ school district, school administrators and teachers are prohibited from notifying parents if their child is suffering from confusion about their gender or desires to transition genders, change names, and go by biologically incorrect pronouns.
SLF and amici are urging the entire Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to hear the case en banc to ensure that fundamental parental rights are protected.