The US District Court for the District of Maryland dismissed a claim last month brought by three parents of students in the Montgomery County Public Schools that by asking and then withholding information about students’ self-reported gender identity, the district violated parents’ rights concerning the education of their children under the 14th Amendment and other state and federal laws.
The parents charged the district with violating their parental rights in several ways:
- MCPS’s 2020–2021 “Guidelines for Student Gender Identity in Montgomery County Public Schools” violate Maryland Family Law by interfering with the parents’ statutory right and responsibility to provide their children with “support, care, nurture, welfare, and education.”
- The Guidelines violate the Maryland Code of Regulations provisions that require schools to maintain student records and make those records available for parental review upon request. Specifically, parents allege the Guidelines require MCPS not to release an “intake form” regarding gender identity to parents.
- The Guidelines violate the Parents’ fundamental rights under the Maryland Declaration of Rights to “direct the care, custody, education, welfare, safety, and control of their minor children.”
- MCBE’s policy of “withholding records from Plaintiff Parents with respect to their children’s” gender identity violates the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1232g (“FERPA”), as incorporated in Maryland law.
- By “questioning a student about gender identity and filling out [the intake form] without parental consent,” MCBE violates the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, 20 U.S.C. § 1232h (“PPRA”).
- The Guidelines violate parents’ fundamental right “to direct the care, custody, education, and control of their minor children” under the 14th Amendment.
But Judge Paul W Grimm dismissed every claim, most with prejudice. The court found that the parents’ claims were unreasonable, given an honest and fair reading of the MCPS Guidelines with which the parents had an issue.
“Parents argue that the Guidelines require school personnel to ‘hide relevant information from parents because they do not want parents to have input on the topic [of gender identity] with their children’ and that, in so doing, ‘MCBE has adopted a very definite position on this sensitive topic,'” Judge Grimm summarized.
But if you actually read the Guidelines, he added, you find that “the Plaintiffs’ reading is unsupported by the Guidelines’ plain language.” Instead, he found upon reading the Guidelines, that they emphasized how the “complexity and sensitivity of issues surrounding gender identity [render] a ‘one size fits all’ approach [inappropriate].” As a result, parents’ claim that the Guidelines interfere with their rights is unsupported, because the Guidelines are meant to be applied on a case-by-case basis, which, by definition, does not foster the kind of inflexibility parents claim they dictate.
Judge Grimm in fact concluded that the Guidelines “actively encourage familial involvement in the development and implementation of a transgender or gender nonconforming student’s ‘Gender Support Plan’ whenever possible” and that “it is also clear that familial involvement is preferred and encouraged unless a student indicates that their family is not supportive of their gender identity.”
And with that in mind, the Guidelines do not prevent parents from directing the “care, custody, education, or control” of their minor children under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.
