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.”
Well said…
“what do you get if you put Lutnick’s remarks and Trump’s diatribe together? You get a picture of an administration that wants to use tariffs to bring back the low-wage, low-technology industries of the past, while killing policies promoting the industries of the future. Apparently they envision an America that produces sneakers, but doesn’t produce semiconductors.
MAGA!”
Then why are several semiconductor manufactures, to include Apple. investing billions to build factories here in America? Why is Ely-Lilly building a drug manufacturing facility in IN? Why is Honda moving production of one of its models from Mexico to America creating an additional some 3k jobs? And if you actually read, understood what Trump and several members of his cabinet said you might understand that. However, you have the understanding of economics that of, well, a baby. Same goes for reading comprehension. Your handle really says a lot about your mentality. And it matches you baby like comments.
Lighteredknot says: You really should research Lutnick and Bessett. They are smart intellectually., have the experience of International economies, and will negotiate strong as the Corleone family and even strong as Hannibal Lecter. You listening and parroting the Progressives if not careful. Musk is in that category with Lutnick and Bessett, also. The corrupt DC inside the beltway, and the Wall Street charlatans’ will be cringing and grousing also. It is time for great purging of the entire corrupt SYSTEM, Judicial and otherwise. This is the first and last opportunity. Selah
In the land of the free, private property enterprises set wages and all other parameters of employment.
There are plenty of “low-wage” parasites on welfare, Department of Agriculture food stamps, SNAP, medicaid, Obamacare, Social Security Disability, etc., who should be immediately hired for a “low-wage” position and taken off any and all public assistance rolls.
Sneakers AND semiconductors, Einstein!
Unfortunately for the economists who sold our leaders on “comparative advantage” and global free trade, national security and resilience turns out to be more important than maximizing short-term efficiency. If we cannot secure our supply of essentials like steel, aluminum, rubber, lumber, food, pharma ingredients, rare earth minerals, and other manufacturing supplies, we’ve traded away our national security for “everyday low prices”.
The vision of a pure “knowledge economy” popularized circa 2000 in the U.S. was an exercise in naive overconfidence. Trade is a path to prosperity, but only among trustworthy trading partners.
You’re literally making things up, but of course you already know that.
“Red Scarf Girl” is a book everyone should read.
Every publication related to communism should be immediately extirpated and replaced with the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The Communist Manifesto, in all forms and its entirety, is toxic and lethal, ideologically and physically, and not fit for human consumption.
I learned about the evils of communism by reading “Red Scarf Girl.” It’s an autobiography from someone who lived through it as a school aged child. She’s now living in freedom here.
Then “Red Scarf Girl” is a publication technically “unrelated” to communism, not dissimilar to “Witness,” by Whittaker Chambers, and eminently worthy of reading.
I stand corrected.
Teacher unions could have been successful stalwarts had they focussed on educational metrics and not fundamentally transform America’s educational system to focus on social issues.
Public school is a communist redistribution of wealth program.
Governmental contracts with unions are illegal and unconstitutional.
Unions are illegal and unconstitutional criminal organizations whose sole negotiating points are criminal trespass, threats, intimidation, stalking, vandalism, slashed tires, smashed windshields, property damage, bodily injury, etc.
Without criminal acts, unions have no position in negotiations.
The first job action of a union is an illegal and fraudulent breach of contract; it’s all downhill after that.
“Teacher unions could have been successful stalwarts had they focussed on educational metrics”
Would you also recommend that automobile manufacturers solicit engineering advice from the UAW?
This is where Democrats turned America against the transgender movement and, unfortunately, the LGBTQ.
What started as compassion for those with gender dysphoria, and being kind to lesbians and gays, turned into the State seizing control of children, schools gender transitioning children without telling parents, creating “safe houses” where kids who claimed to be trans could lawfully run away from home and be transitioned without parental consent, and teaching about transgenderism in glowing terms to impressionable, very young children, putting them on the conveyor belt to castration, sterilization, other permanent physical changes, and suicide. They put on Drag Queen story hour at libraries, where the Queens often incorporated sexual suggestive behaviors. They put on Drag Queen sexual shows for kids. They had Pride Parades with BDSM displays, framed as family friendly.
They went for the kids, and that raised parents’ fury.
Many lesbians and gays are speaking out how they never wanted transgender to be lumped under their umbrella, because it’s not a sexual orientation. The trans movement went hard proselytizing for kids, and severing parental authority. Many gays and lesbians are parents, they didn’t agree to this, and they certainly didn’t want the predictable backlash. The trans movement is essentially anti-gay, like surgical conversion therapy. A gay kid would theoretically no longer be gay if he socially and surgically transitioned to female.
They went for women’s sports, which raised the fury of parents and female athletes.
They went for lesbians who refused to date trans women with penises, or even with surgical body cavities the approximated female genitalia. That raised the ire of lesbians.
They went for straight men who refused to date trans women, which most consider homosexual activity.
They went for women who refused to keep sweet and clap as males swept women’s sports, and shoved their way into private women’s spaces like locker rooms and public showers, and most tragically, battered women’s shelters.
Militant trans activists managed to create a wide tent of opposition, uniting conservatives, feminists, lesbians, gays, athletes, conscientious objectors among psychologists, psychiatrists, and pediatricians, and parents across the political spectrum.
@Karen
‘Turned America against’? There was no transgender ‘movement’ before billionaires got involved; this is akin to the Oxycontin debacle.
Most of us could care less what grown adults do with their time, we really couldn’t, we have our own lives to focus on, live and let live; the problem was the blending with actual, further, dyed in the wool Marxism attached as a way to take eliminate the freedoms in our country. That was all much more insidious and about something bigger, and it is entirely the opposite of sanity or freedom.
It is whole hog a modern dem opinion, that party is no longer considerable. An automatic no. I will never vote for a dem again, by default, they are part of a regime, and I have a lot of elections to go. 🤷🏻♂️ I’m glad we are talking about it; doesn’t make it less insane. Heaven help countries without our Constitution and separation of powers. Something dems used to applaud, openly and vocally.
Karen S: please. More of your silly BS attacks against Democrats based on lies. Schools do not transgender anyone. You cite nothing to support your BS lie that lesbians and gays being somehow forced to transgender. Democrats did none of the things you accuse them of. All of the conspiracy crap you wrote you got from MAGA media. What’s wrong with you? Is it because you live in California? You’d be much happier in Mississippi or Alabama–consider moving there.
Karen S.
Great comment!
Child psychosis is the purview of parents not public school.
The child must be sent home.
“Amanda Coney Williams, sister of US Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, was the target of a bomb threat at her Charleston, South Carolina home, according to multiple media reports.”
Are Trumptards prone to violence? Yes.
MAGA turned on her like a rabid dog.
“Using a 1×8-inch threaded galvanized pipe, end caps, a kitchen timer, some wires, metal clips and homemade black powder, I’ve constructed a pipe bomb which I recently placed in Amy Coney Barrett’s sister’s mailbox at her home at [address redacted], Charleston, SC [zip code redacted]. The device’s detonation will be triggered as soon as the mailbox is next opened. Free Palestine!”
Sound like Trump supporter or a antisemite, Hamas supporting leftists?
Man sets himself on fire at South Carolina Tesla charging stations while trying to torch them with Molotov cocktails
NORTH CHARLESTON — Onlookers near a Mellow Mushroom pizzeria watched as a masked man spray painted “(expletive) TRUMP LONG LIVE UKRAINE” near a bank of Tesla charging stations before setting himself on fire as he tried to burn the electric vehicle ports.
https://thepostmillennial.com/man-sets-himself-on-fire-at-south-carolina-tesla-charging-stations-while-trying-to-destroy-them-to-protest-trump
Leftist demonstrating his tendency to not only violence but stupidity.
How marvelous!
“Man sets himself on fire at South Carolina Tesla charging stations while trying to torch them with Molotov cocktails”
Jerry Pournelle would have called that “evolution in action” 🙂
No thats just South Carolina
UpstateFarmer-I am originally from Georgia. There was much to be said in Georgia about folks from South Carolina. Must of the time the sentence started with “you won’t believe what they did over in Charleston last nite” and then the conversation went unprintable . The solid south of the past is still there but South Carolina!!Jeez.
“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.”
– Professor Turley
_____________________
Article 1, Section 8—Congress has no enumerated power to tax for, fund, or regulate education, and no department of education is constitutional.
No inferior level of government has any power to deny understood fundamental freedoms, including, but not limited to, unenumerated mobility, thought, opinion, and parental dominion.
No inferior level of government has the power to impose dictatorship, which is most certainly not conferred by the 10th Amendment.
At some point, judges must demonstrate the ability to be rational regarding natural, God-given, and maximal American freedom and reject the dictates of communism.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Give me just one generation of youth, and I’ll transform the whole world.”
– Vladimir Lenin
Call the cops
Otis the box turtle, an alpha male box turtle is terrorizing the school kids.
Quote from article: “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.””
I guess that they don’t teach logic in educational school any more, or else Rep. Snodgrass would realize that the contrapositive of this statement is that public schools should no longer be supported by taxpayer funds.
Why? Just because a few parents don’t like how their kids are getting educated at a public school doesn’t mean others are fine with it. Nothing stops parent’s from homeschooling their kids or choosing private school, especiailly in states where vouchers and education savings accounts are available.
It’s regrettable Jonathan that you choose the dichotomy of ‘The Parents vs. The Government’, there are numerous examples to support the two views.
However it is the ‘Individual’, The Child as it were that is relegated into a subordinate state to that of the Parents and the Government(s).
Parents are Gods and Goddesses. A Parent at the very core believes that they are a God or Goddess, They created Life, They are the powerful hand of God.
Hence, all the accoutrements provided with Parenthood by the; Government, Workspace, Financial Subsidies, and Social Appropriations … are taken for free with no account of the cost, toll, and burden it places on responsible Individuals and the Young Individuals that realize and respect that We are over-populated and unsustainable in direct context with the reality on the ground they stand upon .
Again, What gives you the right to bring another Life into this World of 8.5 Billion Individuals today, when this spec of dust circulating the Sun (Our Space Ship called Earth) can only sustain 4 Billion in equilibrium*. But no, You have Kids, your gonna do what you do, your gonna die, and they are going on to have to fight it out to the end, and in the end the Planet takes the toll. We are currently 2x times the most generous estimates Over-Populated.
Lies & BS. Parents have no clue what is going to become of the lives they are responsible for (responsible for – now that’s oxymoronic) bring into this World. -Zero Accountability-
Governmental Management has failed to prove itself. The results are; War, Disinformation, Discriminatory Distribution (Food, Wealth, Clean Environments…). Religions and Governments ignore and disguise the problems They themselves have created. Lies upon Lies. World Politics … does anyone have it right, No.
Millions of Young Individuals (Children as you put them) make the best choices for themselves, in every culture.
The Orphans, The Adopted, The Latch-Key, The Divorced, The Children of Addictions, The Street Kids, The Victims of War, The Victims of Famine, …
How dare you call these Young Individuals Children, as if the C-Word is the assumed subordinate fact of Life, Their Life.
So many Young Individuals see it more clearly than you convoluted Adults. Parents and Governments are molesting the Children’s Future.
Each Man Knows His Own Truth, God gave us that innate ability so that we can navigate this World. And what a messy world it is.
(Thank you very much, Mom & Dad, and Uncle Sam for all this).
In fact, it should be assumed that Adults and the Government DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING with Young Individuals that have a lifetime ahead of them.
They are not an Oracle of their future. What is certain is there will come an End for all of us at this pace.
Save the Planet and you will Save Life.
—
*Estimates for a sustainable human population on Earth vary widely, but generally fall between 2 and 4 billion, with some suggesting a higher number is possible with significant changes in consumption and resource management.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown:
Varying Estimates:
Some studies suggest a sustainable population could be as low as 1.5-2 billion, while others propose that with changes in consumption patterns, a population of 7-8 billion could be sustained, according to Population Matters.
Factors Influencing Sustainability:
Resource Consumption: The current level of resource consumption, particularly in developed nations, is unsustainable for a large global population.
Population Growth: While the global population is currently around 8 billion, projections suggest it could reach 10 billion by the end of the century.
Ecological Footprint: The ecological footprint, which measures human demand on the Earth’s resources, is a key indicator of sustainability.
Technological Advancements: Technological innovations in areas like renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and resource management could potentially increase the Earth’s carrying capacity.
Examples of Sustainable Population Estimates:
Earth4All Approach: This approach suggests that a good life for 7 billion people could be sustained with significant changes in social and technical provisioning systems and shifting consumption towards sufficiency.
Ecological Footprint Analysis: Some models, based on ecological footprint analysis, suggest that a sustainable population could be around 4.4 billion.
Other Estimates: According to the Australian Academy of Science, if everyone lived like a middle-class American, the planet might have a carrying capacity of around 2 billion.
Sustainable Development Goals:
Achieving a sustainable population requires addressing issues like poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation, according to the United Nations.
Population Projections:
Projections by the United Nations suggest that the global population could rise to around 10.4 billion in the 2080s, after which it may stabilize or begin a gradual decline.
I read every word.
OT
If Representative Sarah McBride (D, DE) does not have ovaries, fallopian tubes, and a uterus, he is immutably not a woman.
So a woman who has had a hysterectomy is no longer a woman? Should we still use the term “woman” when addressing an individual who has had one?
So you can say something stupid you should go to the front of the classass (i.e. typo)?
Did Representative Sarah McBride (D, DE) have a hysterectomy?
The absence of a uterus according to you makes one not a woman. So a woman who has had a hysterectomy ( removing a uterus) according to you is not a woman either.
I had a hysterectomy but they left my ovaries and fallopian tubes. Perhaps you would prefer it put as:
Women are people genetically designed to produce a limited quantity, before birth, of large gametes with limited mobility?
Men, on the other hand, are genetically designed to produce highly mobile small gametes which they produce in quantity and throughout their lives.
Neither is inessential, but they are emphatically not the same, nor interchangeable.
Does Representative Sarah McBride (D, DE), have ovaries and fallopian tubes?
Is Representative Sarah McBride (D, DE), genetically designed to produce a limited quantity, before birth, of large gametes with limited mobility?
Is Representative Sarah McBride (D, DE), genetically designed to produce highly mobile small gametes which they produce in quantity and throughout their lives?
Ellen Evans- Well done. It is more complex for some of the readers but sometimes you just have to spell it out for some of the progressives who have no humor and have to have things spelled out, at least twice.
Representative Sarah McBride (D, DE), is immutably a man.
A supreme court reversal of this obscene decision is necessary but insufficient to turn the tide against the entrenched and concentrated power of the “education” bureaucracy. What is needed is to provide parents with the wherewithal (e.g. vouchers for school choice) to send their children to educational institutions that do indeed partner with parents on matters arising in schools. Then we will witness a general realization that the parents are the clients to which the schools need to cater. As it is now, the schools feel no inclination to be limited by the wishes of the parents.
The “education bureaucracy” has no legal or constitutional power, concentrated or otherwise.
The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
The Department of Education is unconstitutional per Article 1, Section 8, and cannot be taxed for or funded.
The executive power is vested, solely and exclusively, in a President who may EXERCISE his executive power or NOT EXERCISE his executive power, as he sees fit.
Teachers unions are illegal and unconstitutional criminal organizations whose sole points of negotiation are crimes that begin with breach of contract and progress to criminal trespass, disturbance of the peace, vandalism, property damage, stalking, harassment, tire slashing, windshield breaking, etc.
People arguing that the school interfered with the parent right to decide what’s best for their child keep forgetting that it was the parent’s choice to put their child in a public school. If they wanted more control over what their child is exposed to or what specific curriculum they want they have the freedom to choose to homeschool or enroll in a private school where they can specify exactly what they want.
The “natural rights” argument still does not precede what the law says schools are obligated to do and not do.
“The guarantee of substantive due process limits “the State’s power to act” by forbidding governments from “depriv[ing] individuals of life, liberty, or property without ‘due process of law.'” See DeShaney v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 195 (1989) (rejecting substantive due process claim based on social workers’ failure to protect a child from abuse). Yet the Supreme Court has made clear that the Due Process Clause “cannot fairly be extended to impose an affirmative obligation on the State to ensure that those interests do not come to harm through other means.”
The Due Process Clause does not protect parental sensibilities, nor guarantee that a child will follow their parents’ moral directives, the parents’ constitutional rights were not restricted.
Maybe we should put warning labels on public schools.
Why? parents are ultimately responsible for the decision, not the state. According to most libertarians the state should be under no obligation to inform anyone of the ramifications of choosing a public school.
“Hazardous to children’s health.”
Maybe we should privatize schools?
“Maybe we should put warning labels on public schools.”
“Imminent Hazard to Intelligence Ahead – KEEP OUT” would be a good start.
Natural rights and the awareness of natural obligations antedate this and most if not all nations. So yes, that argument precedes our laws.
No, it doesn’t. Invoking “natural rights” is used when the law and the constitution don’t align with with what you thing the law ‘ought’ to be.
It’s like claiming a devine right because a higher being allegedly granted it. I makes any “natural right” highlyl subjective to the whims of those invoking it.
Realizing there is a problem is difficult when you are the problem. I equate this to the Teachers Union(s), across the board they have failed and are continuing to fail to teach basic fundamentals to function in society.
The morons occupying the left thinking morass must have had a frontal lobotomy when they were children, I can think of no other reason for this insanity.
I’m going to change the conversation slightly today beyond the human species. I saw on the evening news last night a story about a young woman (a social media “influencer” smart-aleck from the US) who thought it was funny to have her partner film her stealing a terrified baby wombat (a cute little furry marsupial) from its mother in Australia–and posted it on her blog. I could actually and vicariously feel the painful panic and stress of the mother wombat.
https://people.com/influencer-faces-backlash-for-taking-baby-wombat-from-its-mom-11695380
JT is right (as are so many good commenters here today!)
It is primal.
And I hope we more-developed creatures never lose that and remain humbly conscious of our beginnings…
Forgive my indulgence in using up this space:
“For the animal shall not be measured by man…We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err…. In a world older and more complete than ours they moved finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained…They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”
–Henry Beston, from “The OuterMost House,” 1921
It’s a valid point, BUT it’s not what the law says. “Natural rights” can vary greatly from person to person and it’s highly subjective. That’s why we use the law in our books instead. Determining what is right and wrong based on feelings (natural laws) will depend hugely on who is claiming it. One’s natural law is another’s immoral crime. That’s why we rely on a standard that we can use to judge every situation and that’s established law which everyone is subject to equally.
What you seem to offer is that acknowledging empathy towards someone else’s or something’s feelings (natural right) should be the overriding criteria for determining what should be the legal standard because it’s…natural. Am I reading you correctly?
Just like slavery in the nineteenth century.
“Natural rights” (NR) “natural laws” (NL) “based on feelings”
You are utterly confused (and a pompous fool).
NR and NL are not the same theory. NL is in fact the foundation for NR. And there’s a whole school of thought, from Aristotle to Locke to the Founders, that argues that *both* are discovered by *reason* — that they are neither subjective nor based on feelings.
“I could actually and vicariously feel the painful panic and stress of the mother wombat.”
It would be poetic justice if the mother wombat was rabies-infected and transmitted that to the idiot by biting her. Well, actual poetic justice might require a shortage of antivenin there.
Turley falls back on the old “natural rights’ argument because he cannot make a good argument against the law. He’s using what he ‘feels’ is right rather than what the law says.
A school is not obligated to tell parents if a child decides to identify as a different sex. There is no consitutional obligation for a parent to be informed by the school.
“The Third Circuit rejected the parents’ claim because there is no “constitutional obligation on state actors to contact parents of a minor or to encourage minors to contact their parents.” Id. at 262. In elaborating, the court observed that the “real problem” alleged by the parents was “not that the state actors interfered with the [plaintiffs] as parents; rather, it [wa]s that the state actors did not assist [the plaintiffs] as parents or affirmatively foster the parent/child relationship.”
Schools are not the kids parents. Their only job is to teach and follow the curriculum set by the state. Remember it was the parents who chose to send their kid to public school. Once they are in school parental rights are diminshed to a certain point.
Furthermore, the parents allege the school coerced their kids into indentifying differently by mentioning the librarian offering a LGBTQ book after the student on it’s own showed interest in identifying as other than their original sex. Offering the student a book is not coercion. The court pointed out that it is no different than a student showing interest in brick laying and a librarian offering the student a book on masonry coerces the student ot become a mason. It doesn’t work that way.
In addition the Supreme Court has never suggested that parents have the right to control a school’s curricular or administrative decisions. Rather, the Court’s parental rights cases more essentially provide “that the state cannot prevent parents from choosing a specific educational program.”
“ Because public schools need not offer students an educational experience tailored to the preferences of their parents, see Brown, 68 F.3d at 534, the Due Process Clause gives the Parents no right to veto the curricular and administrative decisions identified in the complaint.“
https://casetext.com/case/foote-v-ludlow-sch-comm
In another phrasing, but much briefer, you might just say, “those who have no option but to send their children to public schools are to be pitied; those who merely choose to are witlings.”
This will be an enormous political issue going forward. Anyone that wants to get between parents and their children deserves to be trampled in elections forever more.
“Anyone that wants to get between parents and their children deserves to be trampled in elections forever more.”
Anyone who succeeds in that endeavor deserves to be trampled, literally.
https://notthebee.com/article/watch-this-korean-spa-staff-refuse-to-bow-to-the-trans-mafia-that-demands-men-be-allowed-in-female-spaces
Although they rightly refer to our society as one comprised of many coexisting cultures, i.e., “pluralistic”, the liberal jurists who have decided Foote V. Feliciano to this point have arbitrarily decreed that parentalism is not one of them. As a social group, parents do not have a cultural identity worthy enough to even be consulted on matters that affect the development of their children. And yet still some would say that the slippery slope we have all been on does not have us sliding ever faster toward rank authoritarianism.
My daughter was blessed with many years of incredible teachers in nursery school and through to 4th grade.
My daughter was born in china and we adopted her at 2. She has lifelong issues resulting from 2 years in a Chinese orphanage.
She is strong and intelligent, but at the same time has learning disabilities.
Her early teachers recognized her ability as well as her problems and she thrived, she is driven – again likely critical to her survival in the orphange.
Most americans – even the adoptive parents of chinese children are aware of the many children adopted from china. Fewer are aware that significant numbers of children in chinese orphanages died Between forced often very late term abortions and active neglect in orphanages – about 400M chinese babies were murdered while the 1 child policy was in effect – that is more than the people in the US.
In 4th grade my daughter got what we dubbed “The team of teachers from hell”, for weeks she came home miserable. We contacted the school to find the problem. Turned out that because of her difficulties our daughters education was being neglected – it was too hard to teach her, and so she was neglected, unchallenged and unhappy. She wanted to learn – it was just more work for her.
After nearly a month of pounding our heads against a brick wall, my wife and I started looking for alternatives.
Almost on a whim we found and chose a cyber charter school, we did not have time to make careful thought out choices.
But we decided it could not be worse than what she was already dealing with. That at worst our daughter would lose a year. Atleast she would not be miserable.
That cyber charter proved amazing. It was an incredible it for her. Everything was proceed at your own pace, you did not get to move on until you had mastered the current lesson.
Over the next 10 years – many of the best features of Cybercharters were elminated as State Teachers unions slowly forced charter schools to shift to the exact same teaching model as public schools. The education shifted from self directed assisted by parents and then teachers proceed at your own pace and master before moving on, to daily teacher driven online classes through most of the day with attendance and fixed hours and measures of attendance rather than educational attainment.
If I had to educate a child in my state today – I would home school them. The resources available are about the same as we had when we moved to cybercharters. and parents are in control. With home schooling you can focus on the needs of you child and proceed at their pace.
But we got lucky and 20 years ago cyber charters were an excellent fit for my daughter. Ten years later she graduated with a 3.92GPA in honors classes. To be clear – that was her choice. We wanted our daughter to be happy.
Today the alternative educational choices are near infinite. Most states allow home schooling – and today Homeschooling is as easy as cyber charters were 20 years ago – still not easy, but these are our kids, sometimes sacrifices must be made.
There are myriads of charter and cyber charters. I beleive 27 states have charter school alternatives. and 10 states have vouchers that allow parents to take their kids wherever they want.
Studies have shown that contra teachers union claims – charter schools, result in improvements – not just with chartered schooled kids, but in the brick and mortar schools they compete with.
My story is the story of millions of parents accross the country and the message to the 1st circuit is
DO NOT F#$K with our kids.
People change states over high taxes – but even more move over the education of their kids.
The courts can find for the purple haired 20 something experts who have never tried to clam a screaming baby or get through a grocery store with an angry toddler. And parents can move – or vote out school boards. or vote in school choice.
What is ultimately a fact is that Parents are the ultimate responsibility for their children – not the state, not courts, not 20 something Ed 101 graduates.
Many Parents MAY choose to comply with idiot decisions like these.
But he 1st circuit ultimately can not prevent parents from leaving public schools that go behind their back.
John Say,
Great comment. Glad to hear you and your wife were able to find good solution to public education. Great story.
John Say-great comment. I had many great teachers but I have seen lousy ones who nearly destroyed gifted children. One of the best was a lady who came to my house 1 hr on Mon-Wed-Fri for the second half of my 3rd grade. I was critically ill and not allowed to go to school and on total bed rest. She taught me more in that 1 hour than most full days in school after I recovered. Passed me on to the 4th grade . She was sent by the City of Atlanta public Schools . She and the doctor who saved me are in my personal pantheon of heroes.