Schools should stop disrupting the parent-child relationship
In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled in Troxel v Granville, 530 U.S.57, 65 that, "the interest of parents in the care, custody and control of their children—is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests.” An issue playing out in several local school districts puts that principle to the test. While many other issues assuredly deserve our attention, the government’s attempts to disrupt the parent-child relationship is in my view a far more profound and dangerous issue for all of us.
The controversy has arisen in the Chino Valley Unified School District in San Bernardino County and the Murrieta Valley Unified School District in Riverside County where the school boards adopted policies that protect parental rights by requiring them to be notified if their child begins going by a chosen name, preferred pronoun, or wants to use restrooms that align with their “gender identity” instead of their biological sex.
And citing Troxel v Granville, a federal court in San Diego just granted two school teachers in the Escondido Unified School District a preliminary injunction barring the district from imposing discipline for notifying parents of students who want to change their gender.
According to California Attorney General Bonta’s suit against the Chino Valley School District, the issue is whether public schools should be barred from informing the parents when a student indicates a desire the change the outward manifestations of the student’s sex. That may happen if the student wants to be known by a different gendered name or chooses a pronoun not consistent with the child’s sex at birth. The premise of the issue is these things happen at school and the parents are unaware of it and, if they do not approve the child’s choices, then they should be kept in the dark about it.
Gov. Gavin Newson is fighting parental rights with your tax money. According to records found by Open the Books, an organization that investigates where the government spends the money, state contract grants to an organization called Gender Spectrum advance the cause of nonbinary sexuality beginning at the kindergarten level.
The organization’s ideology, in my opinion, is one of radical liberation from the gender binary, encouraging youth to invent their own genders that parents are urged to “affirm.” And the state has resorted to pending and threatened litigation against those districts, like Chino, who refuse to go along with the program.
According to Attorney General Bonta’s suit in Chino, those who favor keeping such information from the parents call it “outing” the child. In one of many examples of the distortion of language that George Orwell warned us about in his novel, “1984”, not too long ago outing used to be a public shaming of private life. Fortunately, we are well past those cramped views of life; today, outing means to inform the parents when everybody else at school is well aware of the child’s preferred gender identity.
Attorney General Bonta claims the child’s “right to privacy” is more important than the parents’ right to raise their children as they see fit. He says the child’s parents may oppose the child’s decision and the child should be protected from his or her parents if that happens because the schools know better than the parents what is in the child’s best interest.
It is an unacceptably arrogant usurpation of a parent’s constitutional and moral right to determine the care, custody and control of their children, the oldest of our fundamental liberty interests.
We don’t allow children to make contracts, drink alcohol, drive, vote, or serve in the military for good reason. They are no more competent to decide to change their gender without their parent’s knowledge. Public schools give the government a captive audience of youth. If the schools are to survive, they should cease attempting to disrupt the parent child relationship and, instead, concentrate on teaching the children reading, writing, math and critical thinking.
Michael Bond is a retired Seattle lawyer, part-time resident of La Quinta and author of "Remember to Duck: a trial lawyer’s memoir." His email address is michael@bondschambers.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Schools should stop disrupting the parent-child relationship
