We have been discussing the efforts of school officials around the country to block information for parents on their children changing their gender in public schools, including a recent victory for parents in Michigan. I have long been a critic of such attacks on parental rights in our schools. Now, parents have another major victory in California from District Court Judge Roger Benitez, who offered a resounding ruling in support of the inherent rights of all parents. However, public school boards, administrators, and teachers’ unions are continuing the fight to bar parents from knowing about gender changes in their children. Nevertheless, it is a great way to end this year for everyone who values family and parental rights.
The court cuts straight to the point in the opinion:
“With these longstanding principles in mind, this case presents the following four questions about a parent’s rights to information as against a public school’s policy of secrecy when it comes to a student’s gender identification. First, do parents have a right to gender information based on the Fourteenth Amendment’s substantive due process clause? Second, do parents have a right to gender information protected by the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause? Third, do religious public school teachers have a right to provide gender information to parents based on the First Amendment’s free exercise clause? Fourth, do public school teachers have a right to communicate accurate gender information to parents based on the First Amendment free speech clause? In each case, this Court concludes that, as a matter of law, the answer is “yes.” Parents have a right to receive gender information and teachers have a right to provide to parents accurate information about a child’s gender identity.”
Judge Benitez relies on a quote that we have previously discussed from Troxel v. Granville (2000): “It is cardinal with us that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder.” The Supreme Court has repeatedly cited such parental rights, but school officials and teachers’ unions have been unrelenting in curtailing or denying such rights.
That view was captured in the comment of Iowa school board member Rachel Wall, who said: “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.”
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.”
Parents who question unpopular policies are often treated as extremists.
Michelle Leete, vice president of training at the Virginia PTA and vice president of communications for the Fairfax County PTA, said parents would not force them to reverse their agenda: “Let them die. Don’t let these uncomfortable people deter us from our bold march forward.”
I particularly like this paragraph from Judge Benitez’s decision:
“The State Defendants mix up legal constructs. The Attorney General on behalf of the State of California says Plaintiffs’ lawsuit is “properly understood as seeking a federal constitutional exemption from the California constitutional right to privacy, as applied to gender identity in the school context.” State Defs’ Oppo to Plaintiffs’ MSJ, Dkt 256, at 9. But the Attorney General gets it upside down. Plaintiffs do not ask the State to magnanimously permit a sort of federal constitutional exemption. What Plaintiffs seek is to force the State to respect their enduring federal constitutional rights as citizens of the United States.”
Bravo, Judge Benitez, Bravo.
Here is the decision: Mirabelli v. Olson
. I’d consider John Locke’s life, liberty and property. Property defined by the work invested. Children are in a sense property of parents and laws support the idea in a myriad of ways.
It’s been decided by SCOTUS no hormones nor mutilation nor mandated porn discussions by schools and more. The secrecy policy is gone.
There are cases of known xy genetic damage in which case hormones are indicated but not cross gender. DNA maps are available if there’s a question at birth. That’s a sum up of current legislation and courts.
People are mobile and will divide among States presumably. Tax deductible private ed tuition is doable. For the poorest , remote ed at least cost is possible without baby sitting services can be a problem the effort must be to contain the cost of education and there are many ideas to do that.
Moving the cost away from taxed private property must be done as homeowners realize they own Nothing;, they rent their private property from the government and that same government can devastate the investment via the federal reserve.
In your next book on free speech, JT, will you take up parental rights to exert control over what their children are exposed to? Those rights interfere with the rights of others to influence any child in any way they’d like, an encroachment on free speech rights generally thought to be good — necessary to the decent upbringing of the next generation of citizens.
Right now, you have dark chat room operators and malicious contributors who are pushing a sewer of filth and depravity on unsuspecting youth, outside the purview of responsible adults, feeling certain that the law is on their side.
In a sane world, those chat rooms would be subject to lawsuit by outraged parents, and forced to shut down. Getting rid of Section 230 of the so-called “Communications Decency Act” is the obvious corrective. It’s going to take us electing Representatives in 2026 who will stand up to tech industry lobbyists fighting to preserve their status quo biz plans. We’re fighting for a healthy childraising culture, and who among the biz elite is going say “business has no obligation to support healthy mental development of the next generation”. They may have the money, but we have the the moral argument and the votes.
The line between decency and moral depravity must be asserted by the citizens through lawsuits with rapid response-consequences decided by juries. This approach is an acknowledgment that this boundary is too nebulous for a legislative definition of disallowed content, and also that government policing of the infospace puts too much power in the hands of bureaucrats.
We can back up to an era before social media where publishers could be held responsible for what they publish.
This would establish a fundamental pattern of self-correction, part of our cultural DNA. We give technologists wide berth to innovate, but not all experiments they push out are going to work. Any forces that try to thwart that self-correction process must be perceived as dangerous to civilization.
Section 230 does not protect publishing of material under editorial control. Publishers are still held responsible for what they publish. What Section 230 protects is the ability of a provider to have a comment section and not be held as an accomplice to what is in the comments as long as they take reasonable steps regarding prohibited material.
In what fantasy world is there a “rapid-response” by juries?
Gavin and his Groomers are not happy.
Not happy? About what?
You!
Gavin is a man of the people.
The “crazy” ignorant people…
Do Parents Know Best?
Iowa school board member Rachel Wall said: “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.”
……………………………………
Ms Wall makes a compelling argument here. Baptist parents might want schools to teach ‘creationist science’. But no self-respecting science teacher would cater to such nonsense. Trumper parents might demand that students be taught that the 2020 election was ‘rigged’. Far-left parents might want kids to learn that White people oppressed everyone else.
There’s a reason public schools are unionized. Teaching is often subject to political winds coming from every direction.
Whatever you don’t want taught we teach is the translation of babble
ATS – it is irrelevant whether “Parents know best”.
What is relevant is as Turley cites
“It is cardinal with us that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder.”
The state has no rights with respect to children.
Charles Manson is what you get when the state raises children.
There are good parents and bad parents and most fall between.
But the state is not and has never been a “good parent”. Nor have teachers – unionized or not.
Nor do I give a flying f#$K about so called political influences on Teachers.
The ONLY relevant influence on Teachers is PARENTS.
I am with State Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Wis.) to a point “If parents want to ‘have a say’ in their child’s education, they should home school or private school.”
However if parents are obligated to pay taxes for schools – then if they choose not to send their kids to public schools they should be freed to spend that public education money on whatever education they chose.
Or we should just get govenrment out of education, healthcare and all the other things they have screwed up.
Please name anything that government is involved with that is not poorer quality and more expensive over time ?
Name anything that govenrment has little involvement in that is not cheaper and better over time ?
Communist always want full control of the children so they can indoctrinate and brainwash them. Hillary’s book ‘It Takes a Village’ is about the how the government is the village. Communism always fails, which is why they always want to have total control.
Tax deductible, JS, or you’ll end up with massive fraud as seen in Minnesota. There’ll be massive fraud anyway but try to rein it in. The families with 8 children will take the ed money for 8 children give it to a fraudulent group and take a kick back. Be serious. We aren’t in Kansas anymore.
Charles Manson was raised exactly the way his mother wanted to raise him. From time to time he spent days or a few weeks in custody, escaped and went on to do what his mother taught him.
“In August 1934, before Manson’s birth, Maddox married William Eugene Manson (1909–1961), a laborer at a dry cleaning business. Maddox often went on drinking sprees with her brother Luther Elbert Maddox (1916–1950), leaving Charles with babysitters. On April 30, 1937, Maddox and her husband divorced, after William alleged “gross neglect of duty” by Maddox. Charles retained William’s last name of Manson. On August 1, 1939, Kathleen and Luther were arrested for assault and robbery, and sentenced to five and ten years of imprisonment, respectively.
Manson was placed in the home of an aunt and uncle in McMechen, West Virginia. His mother was paroled in 1942. Manson later characterized the first weeks after she returned from prison as the happiest time in his life. Weeks after her release, Manson’s family moved to Charleston, West Virginia, where he continually played truant and his mother spent her evenings drinking. She was arrested for grand larceny, but not convicted. The family later moved to Indianapolis, where Maddox met alcoholic Lewis Woodson Cavender Jr. (1916–1979) through Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and married him in August 1943.
First offenses
In an interview with Diane Sawyer, Manson stated that when he was aged 9, he set his school on fire. He also got repeatedly in trouble for truancy and petty theft. In 1947, although there was a lack of foster home placements, at age 13, Manson was placed in the Gibault School for Boys in Terre Haute, Indiana, a school for male delinquents run by Catholic priests.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manson#Childhood
From birth to age 13 the state did not raise him. It appears that he and his mother actively avoided public school.
Before the US government got involved in healthcare companies sold radium contaminated containers for the health benefits of radioactive water and adulterated bread with wood dust.
“It appears that [Manson] and his mother actively avoided public school.”
Ted Bundy kidnapped, raped, and murdered some 30 young women. He attended *public* school from kindergarten through graduate school.
Care to try again?
Who decides what “what society needs them to know.”?
Pedophile sex organ butchers? Or parents?
“Ms Wall makes a compelling argument here.”
Sure. If you’re a collectivist whose premise is: Your children are property of the omnipotent State. Sit down and shut up.
The Hitler Youth is supposed to be an ominous warning. Not a blueprint.
Deciding what youngsters should be taught is one of the most consequential decisions adults make. It MUST be an open process, with no secret plotting to exclude parents. It will involve experts who understand where the economy is going, and what preparation youth need to thrive in it. Most importantly, it must teach self-reliance, responsibility-taking, critical thinking, open-mindedness and problem-solving skills, especially collaborative ones.
Groups who want monopoly control over what children learn should raise suspicions.
Baptist parents might want schools to teach ‘creationist science’. But no self-respecting science teacher would cater to such nonsense.
Nobody who’s actually a parent, unlike depraved cultural Marxist Democrats, would use the words “respectable” or “sane” to describe Ms. Walls and any science teacher who tells parents their little boy is actually a little girl that needs to be castrated and re-made in the image of the Biden Furry Fairies and Trannies.
And “Baptists”??? You don’t have to be any kind of deist, or claim to be as Baptist as Bolshevik Barack and Big Mike did for decades in Jeremiah Wright’s church of racism and anti-Semitism, to know that.
The reason the unionized public schools are an ongoing scandal of child rape and molestation is because they fund and are protected by the same Democrat party and its perverts, that has pushed their Alphabet Sex Pride Tribe on pre-pubescent children from the moment they start school. And their apparatchiks here show up to defend that – something no self-respecting human being would do.
>b>Forbidden Fruit and the Classroom: The Huge American Sex-Abuse Scandal That Educators Scandalously Suppress
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/07/10/forbidden_fruit_and_the_classroom_the_huge_american_sex-abuse_scandal_that_educators_scandalously_hush_up_1042969.html?mc_cid=0d79030f05&mc_eid=febb5a4d8f
The evidence continues to mount that the 2020 election was indeed rigged. Your comment implies that the status is not credibly disputed. I remember the shenanigans – dont you?
Freedom of Education – 9th Amendment
The Constitution and Bill of Rights Provide Natural and God-given Rights and Freedoms
Free Americans Shall Not Be Compelled Into Miseducation
California public schools are unconstitutional.
The Constitution most certainly allows Americans the freedom to pursue the education they want for their children.
California’s public schools unconstitutionally deny the freedom of enterprise and the free education market of the private sector to American consumers.
California must allow Americans the freedom of education.
California’s public schools unconstitutionally compel the purchase of the defective product of anti-Americans, radical unionists, and antithetical communists.
Where the —- is the Supreme Court?
There is no justice and nothing rationally judicial in California.
California is the personification of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” (i.e. hired help).
Hello fellow Americans
Do you remember what happened under Obama and Biden? Do you remember the transsexual boy molesting and raping a girl in a Virginia school? Do you remember the school refusing to assist the parents in prosecuting the kid transferring him elsewhere to do it again? Do you remember the AG Garland writing memos to have the FBI target parents at school board meetings? Do you remember that idiot MayDork ass opening the border and flooding us with the worlds trash? 100,000 dead from fentanyl and our Cities turned into shooting galleries? Do you remember abandoning our ambassador in Libya to his death then lying their asses off about it, arresting a film maker to support their lies?
This is their platform, this is not in our best interest.
These are just a few things that come to mind, Trump may be a bit of an ass but he’s got our back and he’s American first ass!
Merry Christmas hold fast!
True, anon.
That student was being handled in accordance with their parent’s wishes. Those parents forced the school to accept the transfer of the student. Those parents knew or should have known their child was a sexual predator, not because they were allowed to be transsexual but because the child is an accused a rapist. Per the grand jury investigation – His mother has said publicly he is not transgender.
“The grand jury’s report alleges that Ziegler and other administrators “were looking out for their own interests instead of the best interests” of the district, which “led to a stunning lack of openness, transparency, and accountability both to the public and the special grand jury.””
Because, if the reports were incorrect, the administrators would be sued out of existence due to a lack of protections against such suits. Even winning can have crippling legal bills. Clearly “the district” doesn’t hold the parents to account for the child they are responsible for. Also, it appears that law enforcement dropped the ball on the first assault.
The reason to focus on the school and how they handle criminal behavior is to decrease confidence in the schools in order to justify siphoning money from education into for-profit schools which only the wealthy can afford. The wealthy and upper middle class will pass the tax credits as pure profit and maintain their out-of-pocket costs to exclude the middle and lower class.
So, on the one hand, the parents say they want 100% of the responsibility and on the other hand, the parents want the schools to be 100% liable. It’s a perfect situation to rip them off and take their money and give it the private education thieves.
Ha HA HA . this is funny. was posted yesterday
TO ALL FROM LIN.
‘Twas the night before Congress and all through the House,
not a creature was stirring, not even Anonymous.
The House Bills were pending, all hanging with care,
in hopes that St. Hakeem would get them outta there.
The ‘children’ on this blog were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of “likes” and upvotes danced in their heads;
And Melania in her gown and Trump still on his app,
Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
Trump sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window he flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to his wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny mutineers,
With a little old driver, so lively a scheme!
Trump knew in a moment it must be Hakeem.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, GOLDMAN and SWALWELL and LOFGREN and CROCKETT!
“Now, WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ and OMAR and PLASKETT!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
But Trump was too smart, a right jolly old elf,
And he laughed when he saw them, in spite of himself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave them to know they had plenty to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled up their stockings with E.O.s and smirk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, —all their Bills he froze.
He sprang to his own Sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
Bondi and Blanche and Wiles and Bessent,
and Patel and Leavitt, who knows where they went!
But I heard Trump exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!
Scotus..Alito makes a better argument.
It appears to be another fly by night opinion perhaps for 2 guards having been shot and in such case the regular military is a better choice.
“…unable ..regular forces ” unable isn’t defined it’s open. He’s unable for x,y or z. Whenever unable doesn’t mean authority.
The invasion and insurrection arguments unsaid also. Alito and Thomas are wise to say it needs fleshing out and take the case.
Whenever unable and regular forces is a pretty big authority and does not indicate authority is in question.
Hire 50 thousand ICE agents or move to army reserves. 2 NGs shot is sufficient. Maybe Illinois can have the NG fighting AR?
That alone calls authority and common sense
Gorsuch, Alito and Thomas dissent.
The decision is absurd. Live it up Chicago–> shoot ICE anytime. While you’re at it shoot any gov official. Hey Minnesota, shoot the auditers. There’s no federal law in Illinois. Go for it Gavin.
Georgia, JFK , RFK, KFC were wrong- segregation is back. Yippee!
What asses
In a better time, people sexually grooming children, especially children not their own, would be found hanging from a majestic oak. The Left is insane, deserve no quarter, no mercy, they are a cancer on our nation.
Please come up with something pragmatic that rolls back their repugnant ideology without resorting to mob violence. The French tried that, and found it had no limits on who could be denounced and swiftly murdered by the mob. Come up with something better than that…I know you can do it if you try harder.
OldFish, the conservatives did that to Black people. You seem to have that same violent streak.
I thought Marge Sanger was a Democrat, mother of abortion and eugenics…
Hillary Clinton’s role model.
It’s natural for most earth creatures to want to nurture, teach and guide their own children and be defensive of that natural right.
Just another example of how communism goes against the natural order of man. Inhuman ideology.
Once again people claim a religious right to abuse children.
Give the names of the victims in the Epstein case to Allah 😂.
So true, people like the wholly unconstitutional communist teachers unions who intellectually abuse and molest actual American children with liberalism and communism while disparaging and belittling them and their magnificent and noble actual American history.
Abuse? Where did you get that claim from? Certainly can’t be found in the opinion.