A New Jersey school district agreed Monday to repeal a policy that allowed teachers and school officials to conceal a child’s gender identity from parents.
In 2024, the Chatham School District ruled that counselors can decide “whether and to what extent parents/guardians can participate” after a student expresses a desire to identify as a different gender. In August, Liberty Moms and the Thomas More Society sued the school district, claiming the policy violated parents’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
“No school has the right to transition children behind their parents’ backs, and the Supreme Court has made that clear,” said Christopher Ferrara, senior staff attorney at the Thomas More Society.
Citing two recent Supreme Court cases, the Thomas More Society wrote to the school district asking it to rescind the policy. On June 15, School Board President Ann Ciccarelli claimed that at least one of these cases did not apply to New Jersey schools.
“The board told New Jersey parents that the ruling did not apply to them, kept its secret transition policy on the books and forced families to file lawsuits in federal court to protect their children,” Ferrara said.
“The Chatham Board of Education has ample opportunity to amend this policy,” he added. “Instead, its own president stood up in a public meeting and told parents that Supreme Court precedent simply did not apply to them. This was not a legal argument; it was a flouting of state law.”
Free Moms is asking the court to declare the policy unconstitutional and block its enforcement unless it is modified to require parental notification and consent before a student can adopt a new name or pronoun, or engage in any other activity based on a newly asserted gender identity.
The school board voted unanimously Oct. 15 to reach the settlement. As part of the settlement, the district agreed not to implement a similar policy in the future.
“Now that this policy is gone forever, every teacher and counselor in the district will receive a written commitment from the board to respect parents’ rights,” Ferrara said. “Districts that choose to still hide a child’s gender transition from parents can follow the Chathams’ lead and change their practices immediately, or they can explain their case to a federal judge.”