Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature have decided they can raise your kids better than you can.
On July 15, Newsom signed AB 1955, a bill severing the essential line of communication between parents and teachers that protects students during their formative years. This isn’t just bad policy; it violates the U.S. Constitution by codifying a reckless disregard for the fundamental rights of parents.
Recently, several California school districts enacted commonsense policies that require open communication with parents. Schools must notify parents if a student is, for example, injured at school, being bullied, or experiencing distress over gender. This “no secrets” approach properly aligns the parent-student-teacher relationship and empowers those who know and love their children best—parents.
Amazingly, AB 1955 outlaws these policies. According to the law’s sponsors, notifying parents violates a student’s right to privacy. That isn’t true. When a school possesses information that affects a child’s well-being, the parents have a right to know.
If a child is struggling in class, consistently skipping lunch, or trying out for a team, the school doesn’t violate anyone’s rights by informing the child’s parents so they can make decisions in their child’s best interest. This is doubly so when it comes to a child expressing a new gender-based identity, which may lead the school to make fundamental changes to a child’s school experience, like using different restrooms or being addressed with a new name and pronouns.
Hiding information from parents violates their fundamental right to direct their child’s upbringing, education, and care. While the state must provide a safe environment to all students, it cannot trample the rights of parents in the process. Properly understood, these interests aren’t in conflict. As Alliance Defending Freedom explained in written testimony submitted to the Legislature, parents’ rights are essential to protecting children. When schools improperly prioritize parental rights, children lose the benefit of receiving guidance from their most motivated and least conflicted advocates.
Consider how a middle-school girl in the Spreckels Union School District was allegedly coached to bind her breasts at school and to distrust her mother at a time when she needed her mother’s loving direction the most. The district paid nearly $100,000 to settle the lawsuit filed by the distraught mom.
In Wisconsin’s Kettle Moraine School District, school officials imposed a male identity on a 12-year-old girl who expressed confusion over her identity at school—even after her parents told them to stop. Only weeks after her parents withdrew her from the school, the girl’s confusion resolved. A court ruled the district violated the parents’ rights, and the school apologized.
Similar cases are being litigated in Michigan, New York, and elsewhere. AB 1955 opens the door widely in California for stories like these.
Vulnerable children who experience a disconnect between their sex and their sense of gender deserve to have their parents guide their health care. But now, California mandates that schools keep parents at a distance from their children, filling the gap with “school-based supports” including “[c]ounseling services” and “physical and mental health providers.”
This is backward. The state’s legal obligation to parents is not decreased when a child is faced with—in the words of AB 1955—“deeply personal decisions, impacting health and safety as well as critical relationships.” In fact, this is when parent’s involvement is most needed.
Because of its fatal flaws, the bill already faces at least one lawsuit, and state officials will waste California taxpayer dollars to defend an unconstitutional and unwise policy. It’s a shame Gov. Newsom and the Legislature were willing to move forward anyway. But that’s what happens when the government thinks it knows how to raise your children better than you do.
Matt Sharp is senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom (@ADFLegal) and director of its Center for Public Policy. Jordan Carpenter is legal counsel and also serves with the center.
