Once Again, California Endangers Parental Rights

We live in a divided country. As Mary Eberstadt observes, there are two propositions on which divided Americans can agree:  (1) that we are more viciously divided than ever before and (2) that identity politics is among the most potent political forces of our time. She argues that the sexual revolution created identity politics.

Against this backdrop, Brooke Laufer, a clinician, argues that the world must face a new reality that suggests the nature of political violence has changed. “What once looked like [a] moral struggle . . . has increasingly given way to something more chaotic and disturbing.” In Laufer’s view, what we are witnessing is the rise of gender nihilism accompanied by the revolutionary impulse, a development that may be accompanied by alienation and instability.

Evidently, the revolutionary reality embedded in identity claims can be both a fertile soil of division and a rich source of litigation. Consistent with that claim, in Mirabelli v. Bonta, the U.S. Supreme Court just ruled 6 to 3 that California cannot hide children's gender transitions from their parents. Some legal experts are calling it the most significant parental rights ruling in a generation. Time will tell.

In Mirabelli, the Court granted the parents' emergency application. The Court held that California's schools’ secret gender transition policies designed to hide information from parents violate both the religious liberty and due process rights of parents. This is an important issue because parents are increasingly concerned regarding the scope of identity claims.

The rising complexity of such claims is illustrated by individuals, politicians, and groups who suggest that humans can plausibly identify as one of six sexes, as a horse, or as another member of the animal kingdom. Consistent with such startling claims, the Secretary of War recently fired a kindergarten teacher employed at a military base who identifies as a wolf.

The Mirabelli case concerns an application to vacate a Court of Appeals order staying a permanent injunction entered by a District Court on behalf of parents and teachers who assert that certain California state policies violate their rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Parents argue that California’s policies prevent schools from informing them about their children’s efforts to engage in gender transitioning at school unless the child consents.

Parents also object to California’s requirements that schools use children’s preferred names and pronouns regardless of parents’ wishes. In addition, plaintiff teachers object to their compelled participation in the state’s implementation of the state’s policies. Indeed, this litigation commenced in 2023 when two teachers sued the school district seeking an exemption from the district’s student gender policies.

During litigation, the school district claimed that state law, as interpreted by California’s attorney general and the Department of Education, required it to adopt policies offensive to the plaintiff teachers. The teachers then added state officials as defendants. Then, parents joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs. Two of the parent plaintiffs have religious objections to gender transitioning but were kept in the dark by school officials, consistent with educational officials' belief that state law prohibits the school from sharing information about a child’s transition with the child’s parents.

The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of all plaintiffs and issued a permanent injunction on their behalf. The injunction prevents the school from misleading parents about their children’s gender presentation. Expressing doubts about the District Court’s analysis, the Ninth Circuit of Appeals reversed. The appellate court brushed aside the District Court’s Free Exercise of Religion analysis as well as the Supreme Court’s decision favoring parents in Mahmoud v. Taylor, 606 U.S. 522 (2025).

In its Per Curiam opinion, the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, thus favoring parental rights. The Supreme Court found that the parents, who seek a religious exemption, are likely to succeed on the merits of their Free Exercise of Religion claim since parents have the right to “guide the religious development of their children.”

In addition, under Due Process grounds, parents objecting to California’s policies are likely to succeed, since parents—not the State—have primary authority over the upbringing and education of their children. And the Supreme Court has upheld parental rights for more than 100 years.

 Moreover, parents can show that California’s policies are likely to inflict irreparable harm by denying parents’ constitutional rights. Lastly, the Supreme Court holds that California’s policies violate the Balance of Equities rule, which requires that the “equities do not justify depriving [the parents] of the District Court’s judgment in their favor.”

In summary, the Mirabelli case unconditionally upholds parents’ rights to guide their children's religious development and to direct their children's education. Nevertheless, eternal vigilance is required because educational elites and state actors often see children as pawns in an ongoing dispute about identity. Thus, they are prepared to interfere with parental rights all the way down.