U.S. Supreme Court blocks California policies intended to protect transgender students

Transgender rights supporters rally outside of the Supreme Court, Dec. 4, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday blocked a California education policy that restricts teachers from informing parents about a student’s gender expression, pausing an approach the state says is intended to protect trans minors from rejection and abuse at home.

The emergency case raised fundamental questions about whether parents have a right to know their child is going through a gender transition at school, and whether districts have an obligation to respect a student’s privacy wishes – particularly if disclosure could lead to abuse at home. The Supreme Court has repeatedly been asked to resolve that tension on its merits docket and, so far, has declined to do so.

“We conclude that the parents who seek religious exemptions are likely to succeed on the merits of their Free Exercise Clause claim,” the court said in an unsigned order.

“The parents who assert a free exercise claim have sincere religious beliefs about sex and gender, and they feel a religious obligation to raise their children in accordance with those beliefs,” the court wrote. “California’s policies violate those beliefs.”

At least five conservative justices agreed with the outcome of the case. The court’s three liberals dissented.

“Today’s decision shows, not for the first time, how our emergency docket can malfunction,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that focused heavily on the court’s handling of the case. “The court is impatient: It already knows what it thinks, and insists on getting everything over quickly.”

“A mere decade ago, this court would never have granted relief in this posture,” Kagan wrote. “Then, though apparently not now, we understood that our normal processes — full briefing, oral argument, conference, and opinion writing, along with the time they take — exist for a reason. They ensure that before the court makes a decision, it has marshaled all the relevant facts.”

The emergency appeal from a group of teachers and parents in California followed a decision from the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals that let the state’s policies stand. The appeals court paused an order from U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez – who was nominated by President George W. Bush – that had sided with the parents and teachers, putting those policies on hold.

The Supreme Court granted the request with respect to the parents, but declined to do so when it came to the teachers. But despite that nuance, the bottom line is that the policy as it existed was blocked.

The parents and teachers were represented by the Thomas More Society, a Catholic public interest law firm.

“California is requiring public schools to hide children’s expressed transgender status at school from their own parents,” the group told the Supreme Court. “California parents (including religious parents) are suffering grievously under the state’s regime.”

But the state said the policy and others like it are intended to protect the privacy of students and avoid a “forced outing” to parents who may not accept their child’s gender identity or sexual orientation. California enacted a law in 2024 that bars schools from requiring staff to tell parents if a student identifies as LGBTQ2S+, though much of the conflict appears to be based on interpretations of the state constitution.

“According to testimony in the record, exposing that information threatens ‘significant psychological, emotional, and sometimes even physical harm’ to students,” the state told the Supreme Court. The lower court order, state officials said, “allows no exceptions, even where students face a clear risk of abuse or self-harm as a result of disclosure.”

The Thomas More Society relied heavily on a decision last year in which the court’s conservative majority backed a group of religious parents who sought to opt their elementary school children out of engaging with LGBTQ2S+ books in the classroom.

“The practice of educating one’s children in one’s religious beliefs, like all religious acts and practices, receives a generous measure of protection from our Constitution,” conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court in that opinion.

Public schools, the court’s three liberal justices countered in dissent, “offer to children of all faiths and backgrounds an education and an opportunity to practice living in our multicultural society.” That opportunity, they said, would become “a mere memory if children must be insulated from exposure to ideas and concepts that may conflict with their parents’ religious beliefs.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

John Fritze, CNN