Parents who claim school LGBTQ club turned their kids trans denied Supreme Court redo

(CN) — The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to take on a suit from a group of parents who say a Colorado school district discouraged staff from disclosing student struggles with gender dysphoria to their parents.

In a statement, Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch wrote that they denied the parents’ petition because they failed to challenge the grounds or specific legal reasons behind their suit’s dismissal.

However, they expressed concerns with federal courts avoiding confronting the “particularly contentious” constitutional question of whether a school district violates a parent’s fundamental rights “when, without parental knowledge or consent, it encourages a student to transition to a new gender or assists in that process.”

The high court denied a similar petition last year from a group of Wisconsin parents challenging a Eau Claire Area School District policy that enables students to change their gender identity at school by adopting a new name and pronouns, and using opposite-sex facilities without parental notice or consent.

“Petitioners tell us that nearly 6,000 public schools have policies — as respondent allegedly does — that purposefully interfere with parents’ access to critical information about their children’s gender identity choices and school personnel’s involvement in and influence on those choices,” Alito wrote.

“The troubling — and tragic — allegations in this case underscore the ‘great and growing national importance’ of the question that these parent petitioners present,” the George W. Bush appointee added, quoting his own prior dissent from the Wisconsin case.

Parents Jonathan and Erin Lee joined Nicholas and Linnaea Jurich in suing Poudre School District in May 2023, after their daughters came home from a Gender and Sexualities Alliance club meeting expressing that they may be transgender. They claim the two 12-year-olds had never expressed such sentiments to their parents before attending the club.

At these meetings, the parents say their students were told if they did not like their bodies, they were most likely not the gender they were “assigned” at birth. The students purportedly told their parents that the instructor at the club meeting had rewarded kids who came out as transgender by presenting them with flags and then warned them not to tell their parents.

After attending the meetings, the parents claim their children underwent significant emotional declines that included attempted suicide.

“Poudre School District remains focused on its mission of educating every child, every day, and serving all students and families with respect and care,” the school district’s communications director, John Cope, said in response to the petition’s denial.

In April, the 10th Circuit affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of the case, finding the parents failed to show how the school district’s official policy was the moving force behind their claimed injuries.

Joe Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Nina Wang ruled in May 2024 that the parents failed to demonstrate how they are constitutionally entitled to receive notice about topics discussed in the district’s curriculum — particularly, at after-school, voluntary extracurricular clubs that they may find objectionable.

The judge also concluded the parents lacked standing to seek their requested relief because their children no longer attended the school district. After the club meeting, one couple enrolled their child in private school while the other opted to home school.

“We’re disappointed the court didn’t take this case but our mission doesn’t end here,” Gina D’Andrea, an attorney for the conservative nonprofit, America First Policy Institute, said. “Schools should never be allowed to introduce complex, identity-shaping ideas in secret. And we will continue holding them accountable.”

The parents argue that the school district failed to inform them about the Gender and Sexualities Alliance club’s activities, making them unable to opt their children out of participating based on their religious beliefs. They claim the lack of disclosure violated their rights to direct the upbringing of their children and the presumption that parents act in the best interests of their children.

“This court’s intervention is necessary to reaffirm the fundamental constitutional right of parents to determine the care, custody, and control of their children as well as to instruct lower courts on the proper application of those rights when analyzing school policies such as those in the present case,” the parents wrote in their petition for certiorari.

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