Below is my column in USA Today on the latest decision against parental rights by the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Foote v. Feliciano. The fight over parental rights could become the defining issue for many in the coming years. It is also a type of cultural war over what many of us view as a natural right over the raising of our children.
Here is the column:
In her celebrated book “Red Scarf Girl,” author Ji-li Jiang recounts growing up during the Cultural Revolution in China. She and millions of others had to choose between obeying the country’s communist government or obeying her parents.
“’Now, you have to choose between two roads,’ ” Jiang wrote. “Thin-Face looked straight into my eyes. ‘You can break with your family and follow Chairman Mao, or you can follow your father and become an enemy of the people.’”
Thankfully, we are constitutionally and culturally protected against such authoritarianism. Yet, we are experiencing our own type of cultural revolution as parents and schools collide over the education of our children.
Court refuses to recognize parents’ rights
A recent legal decision captured this growing divide. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit ruled last month that parents had no protected right to be informed when their children change their gender identity in public school.
In Foote v. Feliciano, Marissa Silvestri and Stephen Foote sued Baird Middle School in Ludlow, Massachusetts, after they learned that school administrators did not inform them that their 11-year-old child had self declared as “genderqueer” and that teachers and staff were using a new name and new pronouns for the student.
The parents were initially told only that their child was experiencing mental health difficulties, including depression. Silvestri said they would seek mental health support for their child and asked that administrators “not have any private conversations with (the Student) in regards to this matter.”
The parents later learned that the school’s staff had continued to meet with their child without their knowledge, implemented the change in gender identity and took active measures not to reveal the change to them (including using the student’s birth name in communications with the parents). The school, without the parents’ knowledge, arranged for changes in everything from the use of male bathrooms to the exclusive use of the child’s new name in class.
The district court in Massachusetts denied the parents a trial and granted a summary dismissal in favor of the schools.
A panel of three federal judges agreed and rejected any due process claim of parents to be informed, let alone to control, such decisions for an 11-year-old child.
Court says educators, not parents, are ‘experts’ on children
In a truly Orwellian line, the judges declared, “As per our understanding of Supreme Court precedent, our pluralistic society assigns those curricular and administrative decisions to the expertise of school officials, charged with the responsibility of educating children.”
Most of us must have missed that memo. Few would believe that sending our children to a public school means we have transferred the most fundamental parental rights to “experts” on rearing our children.
We understand that schools need to maintain certain standards and conduct. However, changing the gender of a child is a bit more weighty than requiring a school uniform or stipulating nutritional choices in school lunches.
The Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment guarantees citizens that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” There is no part of our lives more valuable to most of us than our children.
I remember when we had our first child and were escorted out of the hospital by a nurse. After helping my wife into the car, I turned around and was handed a swaddled bundle with a baby inside.
The nurse then walked away as I stood there in a moment of utter panic. We were given a small human being at the curbside with the level of preparation of a Starbucks latte. I stood there looking at my son Ben with the same level of confidence that I would have had if handed a small nuclear device and then tasked with defusing it. You soon realize that you are all in.
The only thing you have at that moment is the only thing you truly need. They have you. Every part of you. Our children had us at hello. The moment that bundle was put in my arms, I changed. I was a dad and all of the prior priorities in my life suddenly became irrelevant.
No one told me at the hospital carport that he was ours until he is old enough to be turned over to the expertise of public school officials.
The fact is, by the time our kids go to school, we are the experts of that child. While teachers clearly have important training and expertise, they do not know that child. Not really.
They were not there to perform monster inspections at 3 a.m. or to wrestle with a goat who decided to eat his favorite blankie at a petting zoo. They do not know that look when he is panicked or that curious smile when he is near tears. These experts took Child Development 101. We have a Ph.D. in our kids, a developmental dissertation on late-night fevers, sibling fights and orthodontic bills.
This is not to say that teachers have no responsibility for children. In too many cases, children can be abused or they may be unable to express themselves to their parents on issues like gender identity. Schools have a right to confirm that a child’s mental health issues are being addressed. However, absent evidence of abuse, the parents must be informed and make decisions on such treatment.
Parents have the natural right to control the upbringing of our kids
The Foote case comes at a time when parents are becoming more alarmed and more active in education. The response from some school boards, teachers and politicians has been strikingly hostile and territorial.
In 2023, Rachel Wall, a now former school board member in Marion, Iowa, posted on Facebook: “The purpose of a public ed is to not teach kids what the parents want. It is to teach them what society needs them to know. The client is not the parent, but the community.”
In 2022, state Rep. Lee Snodgrass, D-Wis., tweeted: “If parents want to ‘have a say’ in their child’s education, they should home school or pay for private school tuition out of their family budget.”
Faced with declining educational achievement and rising social agendas, many families are leaving public schools and others are demanding school choice in the form of vouchers.
At the same time, there is growing support for a Parents Bill of Rights. The Trump administration can work with Congress to condition federal funding on schools’ respect for parental rights, even if the courts do not protect such rights.
In the meantime, Foote should be appealed to the Supreme Court, which can reinforce the constitutional protection afforded to parents.
A century ago, the nation’s highest court ruled in Pierce v. Society of Sisters that “the child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”
In its 2000 Troxel v. Granville decision, the court recognized “the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”
There is no greater natural right than the right to control the upbringing of our children. This right was not granted to us by the grace of the state. It rests with us as human beings. It is part of a panoply of natural rights embraced by the framers − a commitment made nearly 250 years ago in our Declaration of Independence.
Progressives’ shock over the results of the last election could prove a prelude to what is coming if they continue down this road. There is no more powerful identity than that of a parent. When you mess with our children, all other issues instantly become trivial. It is not just partisan. It is primal.
Many politicians are terrified of defying the far-left teachers unions. They and these “experts” have no inkling of what is coming.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
The Left Wing Radicals along with the DEM Party has learned zero from the last election, in fact they are getting worse and moving farther Left and if any DEM objects they are then attacked. As respects to Public schools and Private schools, even the Private schools are as bad as the Public schools in many areas, teaching the same radical policies and some of the parents are Left wing nuts. Simply the Left have to be voted and removed from power and leadership. Its going to be a hard battle.
I hope the dims haven’t learned anything from the last election. I want them to keep conducting themselves as they are. Give them plenty of rope so they can keep hanging themselves.
Independent Bob,
Based off what I am reading, about some nut on the board of the Oregon’s Health Authority, identifies as a turtle, they got plenty of rope and seems no shortage of it either.
This is only the latest escalation of public school systems effectively claiming total power over their students, to the exclusion of parents. Our oldest child was enrolled in NJ public school in the mid1980s. He had some very limited attention deficit issues, but also had a pronounced distrust of unjustified claims to authority (which I am pleased to admit appeared to be largely hereditary). In short, he would question anything that did not seem correct to him. The school used his minor problems to try to railroad him into a ridiculous “special services” program with no real academic value, not because of any academic limitations (his reading and math skills were far above grade level) but because his questions made his teachers work hard to come up with reasonable answers. This got to the point that we engaged an attorney who specialized in representing the parents of students in conflict with school systems. After we paid his retainer. we learned that his wife was the president of the school board with which we were fighting (they used different surnames). Talk about a clear conflict of interest! We quickly transferred our son to a private school that did not receive any public funding, and he (and his younger brother) remained in private schools (this was before the advent of “charter schools”) until they each were older enough to make a rational judgement for themselves whether to continue in private school or enter the public school system. Both chose to go to public school for the greater socialization opportunities, but at that point, they both had developed enough core academic strength and self-confidence and reliance that the abuses of that system did not unduly burden them. They have both gone on to productive careers and good family lives. Even though we were struggling financially to afford private school tuition (while, of course, continuing to be required to pay full public school taxes) during those years, we wouldn’t change our decisions.
The idea that other people can raise a child better than the child’s parents has its roots in the 1970s and 1980s when new parents were urged to attend ‘parenting classes’ so they could raise their children properly. My wife and I went to one a few months after our first son was born. We had been urged to do so by various people who knew he was our first child and we had no extended family nearby.
The ‘expert’ conducting the ‘class’ did not share our assumptions about parents, children, and life in general, but he was full of advice and warnings that if we did not follow it, our son would be disadvantaged for life. We did not go back. Instead, we talked to neighbors and friends, called our parents and aunts and uncles, recalled our own childhoods, and argued about whose families had the best ideas about raising kids and whose childhoods provided the best template for our son’s childhood.
We also consulted books on kids, health, and related subjects, including Dr. Spock, who was great for health concerns, but not everything. The experts do not possess preternatural wisdom regarding how to raise children. I trust the historians more than the social scientists and physicians, because historians look at child-raising over centuries, while the social scientists and physicians usually reflect the fads and fashions of the present, as do teachers at the K-12 levels.
To take instruction on how to raise your child from psychologists or the state or your school or your church is to abdicate your responsibility as a parent. There is no single way to raise a child “properly”; it is a trial-and-error process. Parents do the best they can. The whole village can help, if you are lucky enough to have one, but it is the parents who care about the child, who know the child, and who want the best for the child. The relationship to the child for teachers is temporary, a year or two; for the psychologist, it is remunerative; for the judges of the 1st Circuit, apparently trivial.
Tell us, you a parent of a public school student?
Professor Turley, it is now time for you to switch parties or at least register as non-enrolled or Independent.
Everyone please note that “Baby Trump”, a complete idiot btw, will not comment on the issue at hand. Neither will Dennis, Gigi, George or the many people that need to be “Anonymous”.
The left cannot defend their positions and that is why the shy away from debates, non-sycophantic interviews and actual policy discussions. When was the last time you saw a liberal “reporter” ask a liberal Democrat a follow-up question?
Mirror check! Idiot check!
Another typical response by a lefty. Cogent, pithy, on point, clever and responsive.
I believe parents have the right to know if their child is transitioning. Do you Anonymous? DO you Baby Trump? Do you Dennis? Do you George? Do you Gigi?
I stated by belief, now state yours.
The left cannot discuss the issues because when they do they end up fighting for an open border, Hamas to prevail, boys paying in girls sports and being in their locker rooms, an endless war that kills thousands, never mentioning inflation or the price of eggs for 3 years until January 21st, keeping a radical anti-Semite rabblerousing foreigner in the country, fighting to prevent ICE from removing KNOWN CRIMINALS, keeping waste and graft in the government and now apparently shutting down the government.
HullBobby,
Well said.
Hullbooby – it is notable that until the tail of this article Turley did not discuss the law or ever rights.
The school is not merely messing with a right – they are messing with a primal instinct – and not merely one of humans but nearly all animals. The responsibility and protection of our children is in our DNA – it goes beyond natural rights. Parents will kill to protect their children.
Parents do not consult the latest SCOTUS decision when their children are threatened. They respond instinctively to the threat and often with maximal violence.
It is not merely unlawful or unconstitutional – it is a stupid misuse of the law to compell parents to act different from the drive of inante instincts.
Anyone that can not tell that does not end well is a moron.
” They respond instinctively to the threat and often with maximal violence. ”
Exactly. From an evolutionary POV it is counterproductive to allow the predator of one’s progeny the luxury of surviving to learn from its mistakes.
HullBobby,
Also, as we will see and have seen already, our leftist friends desperation to distract from the topic by posting totally unrelated topics. The good professor is on the side of right and the leftists Democrats on the side of wrong.
Hullbobby, I note that in Virginia where Professor Turley lives you don’t register to vote by political party.
Parental rights must be abolished under our prestigious, esteemed, holy, sacred, and devine Corrupt Deep State System. This is why we desperately need to combine the execitive, legislative and judicial branches into one entity to be led by such praiseworthy leaders as Amy Berman Jackson, Amy Coney Barrett, Ray Epps, Jesse Furman, Leticia James, Tanya Chutkin, Arthur Engoron, and Gavin Newsom, who will preserve and protect our prestigious, esteemed, holy, sacred, and devine Corrupt Deep State System.
Firstly, children are not the ‘property’ of their parents and certainly not the property of the State. Then, what almost no one else seems to be aware of despite my thousands of personal efforts to inform the masses, in the late 1960s the US FDA approved the adulteration of real foods with modified common allergen, incomplete protein, phytoestrogen (similar to human estrogen) rich soy protein mostly processed more cheaply by the early 1970s with toxic hexane with some residue. The US female breast cancer epidemic presented by 1979 (ACS and NCI data) and by December of 2006 at least one online reporter published an article identifying increasingly ubiquitous to the SAD (Standard American Diet) FDA approved soy as the culprit in boys becoming gay and adult males growing large breasts (https://www.wnd.com/2006/12/39253/). Followed-up with the FDA approval of the expanded use of added artificially cultured brain damaging, mind altering monosodium glutamate (MSG) it just might explain why so man educators are so adamant about transgenderism, they all ignorantly ingest too many school lunches containing soy and MSG.
” children are not the ‘property’ of their parents”
Children are not *exactly* property of their parents, but the dictates of life and survival require that parents maintain sufficient custody and control of (especially younger) children such that the distinction is almost entirely theoretical.
Excellent commentary on parents responsibilities, duties and right s… ❤️❤️❤️
All the more strengthening the case for ending the DOE, passing more parents rights laws, passing school choice laws or homeschooling. Great column professor! And thank you for sharing some of your child upbringing stories. And, yes. This could become a primal situation. Someone tried to do these things behind my back, with out informing me or my consent … “Houston, we may have a problem.”
Depending upon when the economy flatlines will dictate when Americans will truly fix our country.
It’s a beautiful day, the gobblers are gobbling! Tom is strutting.
One thing is clear. To win the country, you win the children. To win the children, you must dominate the parents. This is the process. So, do the parents have the will to claim what is theirs, or does the state claim rights that never were theirs to take? In the woke world, the state is everything. For the woke, it is no longer enough to change (offensive) sports teams’ names or tear down (racist) statues. Now they want family values completely – all of them, no exceptions.
Right on, Jonathan! Primal indeed! Please keep us posted on this case. I hope it does go to the Supreme Court!!
Pol Pot separated the children from the parents and then used the children to murder offending adults. 600,000 dead and a generation of unspeakable guilt.
Mao hijacked the youth during the Cultural Revolution and that resulted in pitched battles and over one million dead. No good came of it. None at all.
The same people who botched the pandemic (and probably caused it, too) are now telling us they are the “experts” on child rearing.
The defenders of democracy who cried “insurrection!” are now inciting terrorist acts against Musk, etc. They are encouraging low-intensity warfare in social media. They, of course, love the “experts.”
If anyone was hoping 2025 would be a return to normalcy, you don’t understand the expert class and its sheople. That’s at least 45% of the electorate. Good luck with normalcy.
It’s harder than anyone thinks, so roll up your sleeves and gird your loins. It will take ten years to fix this, if ever.
Don’t you just love headlines?
“Robert Morris, Texas megachurch pastor and former Trump adviser, indicted for child sex crimes”
Is anyone surprised?
Much more interesting headlines,
Obama briefing memos, sensitive foreign conversations forwarded to Biden private email, memos show
“Experts say new tranche of emails released by National Archives show U.S. information put at security risk.”
https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/biden-pseudonym-emails-put-sensitive-information-risk-hackers
Trump tries refilling critical fuel stockpile, but Biden’s drain may do lasting damage, experts say
“While former President Joe Biden wasn’t the first president to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for political reasons, he drained it more than any president before him. The frequent draws and refills may be threatening the structural integrity of the reserve, experts say.”
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/trump-admin-begins-refilling-energy-stockpile-experts-say-bidens-drain-may
Morrisey signs Riley Gaines Act into law, creating ‘single-sex private spaces’
https://www.wdtv.com/2025/03/12/morrisey-signs-riley-gaines-act-into-law-creating-single-sex-private-spaces/
One headline. Democrats could fill an encyclopedia. Epstein alone would be thick volume.
Paedophila knows no political boundaries.
So, according to Rep. Snodgrass, parents who can’t afford private school tuition or are able to home school are not allowed to “have a say” in their children’s education. How nice. These people are ghouls. (By the way, “Rep. Snodgrass” sounds like she was given the name by J. K. Rowling.)
DoE does nothing but fund the unions. I am of the same mind as federal unions: they shouldn’t exist. You’re being paid by the government. If you want better conditions, you don’t need a union, you need to go up the chain.
(I know unions were/are effective in the private sector; they are nothing but money scams in the federal)
We need to do what other countries have done years ago. Instead of our school taxes going right to the teachers union they should instead fund education vouchers. The parents would then select the school they wish their children to attend and the vouchers would fund tuition. Public schools would continue to exist but now the would have to compete, on an equal cost basis, with a variety of alternative options.
Competition is a wonderful thing. If the public schools had to face it they’d shape right up.
The growth of the fed has done nothing but stagnate competition. It’s why all our manufacturing moved overseas (companies find better deals with freeer markets), all our education has gone to shit (public, gov funded ed overwrites capabilities of private schools), even media and games have stagnated (GamerGate and the increasing wokeness of media)
This is absolute Lunacy!!! I got nothin…………..
Well said
It’s turtles all the way down…
The Daily Mail reports:
“A member of Oregon’s Health Authority (OHA) on best practices and policies in mental health said they identify as a ‘turtle’ during a state panel meeting.
JD Holt, who also goes by ‘JD Terrapin’ on Facebook, announced that they use ‘they, them and turtle’ for their preferred pronouns during a December meeting.
‘Hello everybody, it’s JD. I use they, them and turtle for my pronouns. I’m in the Springfield-Eugene area and I get to be part of the council,’ Holt said during a virtual advisory council meeting.”
I guess all “progressives” everywhere are quite pleased…
“I use they, them and turtle for my pronouns. I’m in the Springfield-Eugene area and I get to be part of the council”
Please tell me that you read this in the Babylon Bee…
today’s public union democrats are predators!
Actually pedos.
You mean like Trump supporters?
“Robert Morris, Texas megachurch pastor and former Trump adviser, indicted for child sex crimes”
Something much more interesting,
Obama briefing memos, sensitive foreign conversations forwarded to Biden private email, memos show
“Experts say new tranche of emails released by National Archives show U.S. information put at security risk.”
https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/biden-pseudonym-emails-put-sensitive-information-risk-hackers
Of course those of us with common sense, logic and critical thinking skills are wondering, did Hunter have access to this email account?
Do we need to list the left wing Pedo’s ? or the fact that Hundreds in the NSA were just fired for their posts in a government chatroom explicitly created and funded to advocate for deviancy – including pedophilia, and that they were paid to do so ?
@Baby
You are ridiculous, and likely paid (given the timing of your popping up). Nobody cares.
Clearly, the rest of us are moving on without you, and that momentum is only going to build. Short of being legitimately insane and actually hurting other people, I don’t know what hope your insanity has in a sensible society. But keep crying, Baby.
@Baby
You are a ridiculous person with a tiny, tiny mind.
Hardly mutually exclusive…