Foote v. Ludlow School Committee

Description:  Public school officials in Ludlow, Massachusetts enacted a gender-identity policy that excludes parents from any knowledge or involvement in key decisions regarding their children’s care, blatantly violating parents’ fundamental right to direct their kids’ upbringing, health care, and education.

WASHINGTON – Multiple parental rights advocates, psychiatrists, and school district officials—along with 21 states and Guam—filed friend-of-the-court briefs Thursday with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of New England parents that are suing Ludlow School Committee officials. The district enacted a gender-identity policy that excludes parents from any knowledge or involvement in key decisions regarding their children’s care, blatantly violating parents’ fundamental right to direct their kids’ upbringing, education, and health care. Attorneys with Child & Parental Rights Campaign and Alliance Defending Freedom represent the parents and asked the Supreme Court in July to review the case.

“Parents—not the government—have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing, education, and health care of their children,” said ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch. “Mr. Foote and Ms. Silvestri have a moral belief, backed by well-supported scientific opinion, that a so-called gender transition harms children. Parents have unique and intimate knowledge of their own children’s best interests, but the Ludlow School Committee insists it knows better than parents, undermining centuries of tradition, case law, and common sense. We are thankful for these advocates who are urging the Supreme Court to take this case and affirm the constitutional protections parents have in making the best decisions for their children.”

When Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri learned that their 11-year-old daughter was experiencing depression and questioning her gender identity, they hired a private counselor to help her. They informed the school district they were getting their daughter the mental health help she needed and instructed school officials to not have any private conversations with their daughter about these matters.

But school officials disregarded the parents’ explicit instructions and decided to “socially transition” their 11-year-old daughter. Officials regularly met with her to assist with and encourage her “transition” to “genderqueer,” with a male name and nonbinary pronouns like fae/faerae/aer, ve/ver, xe/xem, or ze/sir. They even provided her with pro-LGBT instructional resources, exchanged private online messages inviting her to reject her parents’ care plan, and encouraged her to use the bathrooms where middle school boys undressed. School officials actively concealed their activities from the girl’s parents by using her real name and pronouns when communicating with her parents but using her male name and nonbinary pronouns at school.

The school counselor instructed middle-school staff that they should not tell the parents about their daughter’s use of a male name without her permission, but one of the teachers eventually did. The school district promptly fired her. After learning what the school district was doing to their daughter, Foote and Silvestri begged district officials for help, but officials refused and even accused the parents of using parental rights as “thinly veiled … camouflage” for “intolerance, prejudice and bigotry against LGBTQ individuals.” They insisted their policy was necessary because children struggling with identity issues were only safe at school, not with their own parents.

“Ludlow’s actions should trigger alarm bells. These secret acts, which contravened the parents’ express instructions, violated the constitutionally sacrosanct parent-child relationship,” said the multi-state brief led by Montana, West Virginia, and Florida. “But rather than answering the alarm, the First Circuit greenlit further public intrusions into that relationship, empowering schools to seize control.”

“Parents are the adults who care the most about their child, spend the most time with their child, and are responsible for rearing their child,” added the brief from 38 Pennsylvania school board directors. “Interference with that core parent-child relationship, particularly in areas one may view, rightly or wrongly, as part of the child’s ‘identity,’ separates a child from the unique wisdom, care, and understanding in that relationship. When it comes to delicate familial matters, parents are the last people who should be cut out of their child’s life.”

In March 2023, ADF attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in support of parents’ rights. In February, however, the 1st Circuit ruled against the parents, prompting ADF to join as co-counsel in bringing the petition to the Supreme Court.

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.

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