Supreme Court Declines to Hear Florida Parents' Challenge to School Gender Identity Policy

CBS News reported that the Leon County School Board created its guide to address these competing interests.

Three years after the Leon County School Board created its guide, Florida enacted a Parents' Bill of Rights. This law prohibited public schools from infringing on parents' rights to direct the upbringing, education, health care and mental health of their children.

To comply, the Leon County School Board revised its procedures in June 2022 to ensure school personnel did not intentionally withhold information from parents.

A student attended a middle school in Tallahassee, Florida. The student told her parents January and Jeffrey Littlejohn that she was confused about her gender and asked to change her name to J and use they/them pronouns.

The parents did not agree, but said she could use J as a nickname at school. The student expressed to a school counselor a desire to use a different name and they/them pronouns. The counselor, social worker and principal then met with the student to complete a support plan and sought various information, including her preferred name and pronouns.

According to court filings, the parents were not told of or invited to the meeting because their child did not ask for them to be there. The parents learned about the meeting through the student several days later, and demanded the school stop meeting privately with their child and treating her as nonbinary. They were later given a copy of the student's support plan, they said in court papers.

The Littlejohns and the school board have made conflicting claims as to whether school officials met with the student again. The Littlejohns sued the school board and district officials in 2021. They alleged that their rights to make decisions about the care and upbringing of their children were violated.

CBS News reported that the trial court dismissed the case, and a federal appeals court upheld the decision. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that while it agreed the school infringed the Littlejohns' fundamental rights, the parents failed to satisfy the standard for proving a violation of their substantive due process rights.

The Supreme Court left the lower court decision in place by turning away the case. Several states have enacted similar measures in recent years regarding parental notification and consent. The Supreme Court's conservative majority has intervened in related cases, such as blocking the California law amid ongoing litigation.

The procedures in Leon County were revised to adhere to the Parents' Bill of Rights, ensuring no intentional withholding of information from parents.