In the law, the concept of In loco parentis refers to those who act in the place of parents. The problem is when that authority is taken rather than granted. It is a growing problem in blue states as parents push back on Democratic measures stripping them of notice or consent over their children in public schools.

In the last few months, Democrats have been buoyed by protests over immigration enforcement. Many politicians have fueled a wave of rage sweeping major cities before the midterm elections, denouncing law enforcement as “Gestapo” and “Nazis.”

However, a Supreme Court decision this week may lay bare an even greater threat to Democratic aspirations over parental rights. For many parents, blue states are attacking the most fundamental right of citizens in raising their own children.

This week, the Supreme Court granted an emergency appeal filed on behalf of Catholic parents in California. The order in Mirabelli v. Bonta proved a decisive victory for parental rights and an equally notable defeat for California democrats.

The action, filed by the Thomas More Society, challenged a policy under a state law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2024, that prevented teachers from notifying parents of their children’s gender identity changes. The law was heralded as a protection against the “outing” of transgender students.

Some of us have been following the litigation since the original filing and heralded the decision of District Court Judge Roger Benitez, who wrote a powerful opinion in support of the rights of all parents. However, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed his injunction.

In issuing the order on its “shadow docket,” the Court delivered a key win for parental rights that many of us have been seeking for years.

Blue state legislators and educators have been waging a war on parental rights, particularly in the area of transgender policies. Recently, in Michigan, parents sued to defend their rights after the Rockford Public School District refused to inform them of gender identity changes in their children.

Last year, I wrote about a startling decision in Foote v. Feliciano in which the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled against Massachusetts parents Marissa Silvestri and Stephen Foote seeking such notice. As in the California case, 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 First Circuit dismissed the right of parents over their own children in the case, holding that “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.”

Foote was a chilling decision that reflected the view of state officials that parents give up their rights over their children when enrolling them in public schools

That view was evident in the comment of State Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Wis.), who once 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.”

For many of us, there is no more fundamental right than the control over the raising of one’s children. This view was reflected in prior Supreme Court decisions, such as Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), when the Court declared “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 2000, in Troxel v. Granville, the court recognized “the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”

Yet the Court has failed to articulate a clear standard for protecting parental rights, as it has for other fundamental rights. The result has been a coordinated campaign to limit and marginalize parental rights in public schools.

Mirabelli may reflect a critical turning point in this fight.

The Supreme Court sided with the parents in restoring the injunction as the case continues.

The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented. Justice Kagan decried the rejection of California’s priorities and objected to “throwing over its policies in a slapdash way.”

The unsigned opinion did not lay out a clear foundation for protecting parental rights. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas wanted to go further in ruling on the merits in favor of the parents. Both free exercise and substantive due process claims were raised, but it is unclear where the justices fell on the merits of those claims.

Perhaps Foote will allow the Court the opportunity to take the result in this case and convert it into a long-needed comprehensive protection for parental rights. (A petition for review in Foote is currently pending with the Court.)

Democrats have already put themselves at odds with the vast majority of citizens on issues such as transgender students competing in girls’ sports. However, parental rights present a far greater political threat. There is nothing more personal or sacred to parents than the upbringing of their children. Yet, blue states have fought parents doggedly in courts.

In public, Democratic politicians have dismissed parental rights. For example, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Cal.), who is running for governor of California, actually mocked parental calls for consent over key aspects of children’s education in public schools. He insisted that parent consent was like  “putting patients in charge of their own surgeries? Clients in charge of their own trials? Please tell me what I’m missing here … This is so stupid.”

The coming election may determine not only the importance of parental rights but the “stupidity” of those who oppose them. In the meantime, parents just secured a long-needed boost from the Supreme Court.

What we need now is to move this issue from the shadow docket into the light of day with a full opinion that protects parental rights alongside other fundamental constitutional rights.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the author of the New York Times bestselling “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”