Supreme Court Rejects Parents’ Appeal to Protect Rights in School Gender-Transitioning Case
The Court announced it will not intervene in a case brought by two parents claiming they had a right to be told—and to object—when their school “socially transitioned” their daughter to another sex.
This morning, the Supreme Court announced it will not intervene in a case brought by two parents claiming they had a right to be told—and to object—when their school “socially transitioned” their child to another sex.
We covered the parents’ case, Foote v. Ludlow from the beginning here:
- Another School Gender-Transitioning Case Has Reached SCOTUS
- Parents Petition US Supreme Court to Protect Rights in School Gender Transition Case
- Appeals Court: Parents Have No Right To Be Told When Their Child ‘Socially Transitions’ Sex In School
- First Circuit Court of Appeals Hears Oral Argument in School Secret Social Transitioning Case
- Federal Courts Allowing Secret Social Transitioning in Schools, Rebuff Parents’ Rights
Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri brought their original lawsuit against the Ludlow, Massachusetts, school committee in 2022 after they learned from one of its teachers that their 11-year-old daughter had secretly become “genderqueer.”
If not for that one brave teacher—later fired for coming forward—according to the complaint, the parents might never have known: Under the school’s non-disclosure policy, when a student asks to be called by a new name and pronouns of a different sex, staff members must keep it a secret from the parents, unless they have the student’s consent.
The parents claimed the policy violated their constitutional rights to raise and make medical and mental-health care decisions for their child.
In February 2025, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit rejected their case. The court said the school’s non-disclosure protocols were “curricular and administrative” decisions over which the parents had no say.
Last year, the parents urged the Supreme Court to reject the First Circuit’s “flawed view” of their rights—and stop schools from “transing” children behind their parents’ backs.
Today’s announcement comes as a disappointment to parents whose hopes were raised last month by the Court’s decision in another gender-secrecy case, Mirabelli v. Bonta. In a preliminary ruling, the Court held California’s non-disclosure policies likely violate parental rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children.
Parents’ advocacy groups have long argued that public schools are driving the national transgender crisis. More than 1,000 school districts have reportedly adopted similar gender-secrecy policies—policies that put students on a path to permanent, life-altering medical transitioning, potentially locking in what would otherwise be a passing phase in a child’s development.
The Court has been asked to wade into the conflict over gender-secrecy policies several times in the past. In 2024, it declined a petition in a similar lawsuit over a Wisconsin school’s gender identity plan. Justice Alito dissented, lamenting the missed opportunity to take up a question “of great and growing national importance”—a question that remains for the Court to finally answer.
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what??????
if parental control vs government control isnt considered worthy of purview
Government control has become a thing. Parents had no say about the covid jab for their kids either. Parents will have no say about what their kids are learning in government run child care centers, or in public schools for that matter. Parents have no say, period.
AKA communism.
Keep your children out of the hands of those who think they are better than you and therefore know what ideologies to give your child.
We must change the public’s perception of so called “public schools”, they are “government schools”.
Parents no longer are in control of their children, so why a they be also financially responsible too, if the state is now defacto parents then let them pay for everything
It’s time for Roberts to go. This SCOTUS is ridiculous.
Where has common sense gone in the court
Used to be the school nurse couldn’t give your child an aspirin without a release signed by the parents.
This weekend we were at Sam’s club trying to buy flea and tic med for the dogs- it’s prescription only. Nope- not w/out a prescription.
FLEA and TIC meds!!!!! As though they would ever NOT prescribe it. Basically pharma extortion to run up vet bills.
Yet a kid can get how far in this process w/out a parent ever knowing?
It’s becoming too expensive to have a pet unless one is wealthy. The last of our three cats died last December. I’m still mourning the loss. Her care cost us about $3K. There is no way we can afford another.
At least for animal meds you can often evade the red tape by ordering from Canada.
This is good news!
It’s important that parents understand the true nature of the government schools. Unfortunately, many parents actively refuse to understand, in spite of all evidence.
Get the kids out!
I agree. If you leave your children in these ‘schools’, you obviously agree with ALL they do.
I am retired now but my two sons had issues in HS back in the 90s and early 2000s. Their HS was in Loudoun County VA and the teachers taught poorly, Me and my wife had to tutor our sons through every class to teach them properly. We had tried to go to the teachers, the Admin, and the School Board but we got nowhere.
My oldest has a family now in Berkeley County, SC and both children are doing good. I still worry about schools today. I feel Homeschool likely would be better as my sister-in-law taught her two kids that way in Colorado Springs. They both learned much better than the rest and finished college and got good jobs quickly.
I do not believe county or city run schools are good for the kids. From teaching I got in the 60s and early 70s is lost compared to todays teaching. I have seen videos on You Tube showing what was given for teaching back in the 1870s and the book was much smaller yet the actual teaching was much easier to follow and taught better.
Robert Heinlein wrote about this – in the context of colleges – over fifty years ago.
An excerpt of an excerpt follows. The longer excerpt can be read at https://instapundit.com/776638/
“Those examinations for the English-composition requirement: How can anyone fail who has had 3 years of high school English and averages B+ across the board?
If he fails to qualify, he may enter but must take at once (no credit) “Subject A” – better known as “Bonehead English.”
“Bonehead English” must be repeated, if necessary, until passed. To be forced to take this no-credit course does not mean that the victim splits an occasional infinitive, sometimes has a dangling modifier, or a failure in agreement or case – he can even get away with such atrocities as ” – like I say – .”
It means that he has reached the Groves of Academe unable to express himself by writing in the English language.
It means that his command of his native language does not equal that of a 12-year-old country grammar school graduate of ninety years ago. It means that he verges on subliterate but that his record is such in other ways that the University will tutor him (no credit and for a fee) rather than turn him away.”
Ignoring such a big question regarding parental rights is absurd. It is cowardly behavior thar SCOTUS did tgis. Why?
Because they are COWARDS
IMPEACH JOHN ROBERTS!
Push for real school choice in your State so that the funding follows the Student to the educational environment the Parents select as the best option for their children. Until ‘Big ED’ faces real competition and sees the flow of funding going across town away from the teacher union, away from ED lobby preferences the public K-12 systems won’t reform. Remove their arrogance by taking away the inflow of funding they feel entitled to and only then will they adapt to free market pressures.
It looks like “ED” means both erectile and educational dyfunction.
“In loco parentis” is beginning to mean “the schools are crazy parents.”
“Conservative” Supreme Court.
“Another sex”. Hmm, why not write male
or opposite I thought. Silly me, gender queer had slipped my mind.
When the patent absurdity of the argument’s foundation is ignored, there is not point in squabbling about finer points of law. Our society has become totally degenerate, and unless a major crisis shakes us up soon, we will be destroyed.
Ludlow Mass is pretty much all Portuguese. It used to be a very conservative town and almost everyone there was catholic.
Not anymore I guess.
Massachusetts is nothing but a dump.
Government schools are an abject failure. As I have posted many times:
Close the schools. Fire the staffs. Raze the buildings. Plow the land. Plant corn.
My grandchildren are in a private Christian school in Texas
Thank God
With the new legislation many people with a certain level of income can access these schools now, they ain’t cheap
Unfortunately my daughter’s family did not qualify, despite her husband pilot being laid off for 3 months . Flew private and the planes were sold. Got on with SW but it was along hiring process
Anyway, I don’t think it’s fair , I think we all should be able to take OUR money to the school of choice
But Texas couldn’t get the legislation through for years, because of RINOs, Dems and small
School districts terrified of losing students
If your whole city employment revolves around one or 2 HS’s, maybe your schools need to be excellent.
Lots of resistance in small rural. towns and Counties. Firstly, the public schools generally do a competemt to a very good job in those places. My own small rural town exemplifies this. It’s a top ten HS in Alabama, not top 10% but numerically, by metrics of grad rate, college admissions, scholarships awarded, # of National Merit Scholars, SAT/ACT scores. Everyone attends these schools from children of day labor to those of Judges/Physicians. Thus the entire community is still invested in the success of the schools including the teachers/administration whose own children attend them v some price school option.
Secondly is the financial aspect. Lots of teachers marry a local dentist, attorney, farmer, rancher, small business owner. The stable income and quality benefits, especially health insurance, of the teacher makes a big difference in quality of life. Folks fear upsetting the apple cart with changes when their own well being may suffer, especially when in their own community the local schools are still functioning well to excellent.
Your small rural town in Alabama sounds a lot like my small rural town in northwest Alabama. Go figure.
In AZ we have charter schools on every block, supported by the taxpayer.. Anyone who wants out of the public schools can find a place.
“their 11-year-old daughter had secretly become “genderqueer.”
Eleven years old?
Did she secretly pass Driver’s Ed, too?
Obvious grooming…
Honestly, I’m surprised more parents haven’t taken it into their own hands. I fear that I would. Maybe some dead administrators would get the point across. You don’t mess with peoples children
What is the difference between the CA and MA cases that caused SCOTUS to rule on CA one way but let MA go, essentially ruling another way? Shouldn’t parental rights be universal regardless of which state you are in?
In California the parents won at the district court, the state appealed to the appeals court, which stayed the district court’s injunction, and SCOTUS vacated the stay, saying the parents were likely to win in the appeals court.
In Massachusetts the parents lost at the district court and again at the appeals court, and were now trying to get the appeals court decision overturned. The vast majority of cert petitions are denied, and this was just one of them.
Get your kids in private school.
Not a clean case. Messy facts.
.
Among other things, apparently the parents didn’t first use FERPA to see what constituted the school’s official position in the student’s records. (No mention of any demands that were thwarted to see information in the child’s educational file.)
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The parents also knew that their daughter was having mental issues, and apparently were angry at least in part because the school was not handling these in the manner the parents preferred — and tried to dictate how or when issues were discussed with the student (also claiming this was “medical treatment”.)
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Then the problem of inaction by omission. E.g. if the student were overweight, and supposed to be on a diet, would the school be liable if she told a teacher that she had been sneaking candy bars, or if a school administrator did not stop her from using a vending machine to buy potato chips and also didn’t tell her parents. E.g. would a school be liable if the librarian gave an inquiring child books on evolution contrary to the parents’ religious beliefs. “Omissions” to act are a difficult claim to make without a clear constitutional mandate requiring an action. Putting aside some offensive stuff in the appellate opinion, such as using the pronoun “their” for one female student, this still was just not a clean enough case of violation of parental rights.
.
(By the way, something is wrong with the parenting if a child feels okay telling peers, school teachers, and the rest of the world something, but not the child’s parents. I realize this is unpopular to say, but it needs to be said.)
Being overweight, but sneaking candy bars cannot be equated to a mental illness, which is the issue here.
The child is/was mentally ill, and the school deliberately hid that fact from the parents. It can even be said that the school enabled or encouraged this mental illness to continue.
Would be intriguing to have some liability questions addressed about the School District, Board and employees. With Parents being convicted for the actions of their mentally unstable children what happens when the School chooses to conceal the mental illness from the Parents? Has that deliberate policy choice created the basis to transfer both criminal and civil liability to the School District, Board and employees if the child goes ‘postal’? What about liability when/if in the future that former student now an adult begins suing all the supposed ‘grown ups’ who cheer led their now unwelcome ‘transition’? Will the School District be assuming potential liability alongside the medical professionals who irrevocably butchered a minor child?
So the Supreme Court is allowing the Culture Marxists play God changing kid’s sex.
Most end up as train wrecks or suicide, but the Culture Marxists get to use LGBTZYZ as a protected class.
Because homosexuality is now the established state religion.
Lesson: Do not send children to public schools.
1. The real problem is government schools. By definition they’re not answerable to parents. Anyone who still has their children in government schools is asking for this.
2. What did everyone think was going to happen once sexual deviance was legalized?
The Supreme Court won’t touch this case because they helped to make homosexuality (and its attendant illnesses) the official established state religion.
Just another reason, I’m glad my daughter homeschool is my grandkids.. government control is getting out of control
This story is flawed.
It says: “Last year, the parents urged the Supreme Court to reject the First Circuit’s “flawed view” of their rights—and stop schools from “transing” children behind their parents’ backs.” but it does not say what happened after that to bring the case back to the Supreme Court?
Did the lower court not yet act on the previous ruling or did they totally ignore it?
Is the Supreme Court just saying, “We already ruled on this!”
What happened or didn’t happen that is not being reported?
It didn’t come “back”. This is the decision on that cert petition. They filed it in July last year, and it was just now considered and rejected. As are the vast majority of cert petitions, so there’s nothing earth-shattering here.