CO parents file renewed motion as school district refuses to use single-sex overnight rooming
ADF attorneys add fourth family to lawsuit challenging Jefferson County Public Schools policy that assigns students to overnight accommodations based on ‘gender identity,’ not sex
DENVER – A fourth family has joined a lawsuit against Jefferson County Public Schools for violating parents’ fundamental right to make decisions about the upbringing and education of their children. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing the families filed a motion Friday in federal district court asking it to reconsider the families’ case.
The court denied a previous motion the families filed asking the court to stop JeffCo officials from requiring their children to share beds, bedrooms, and shower facilities with students of the opposite sex on school-sponsored overnight trips. JeffCo’s policy of rooming students by gender identity rather than sex without prior notice or a sex-separated alternative violates the families’ free exercise, bodily privacy, and parental rights.
“Parents, not the government, have the right and responsibility to direct the upbringing and education of their children, and that includes making informed decisions to protect their child’s privacy,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kate Anderson, director of the ADF Center for Parental Rights. “This fundamental right is especially vital for all parents to protect their children from violations of bodily privacy in intimate settings, like sleeping arrangements or shower facilities. Jefferson County Public Schools claims to ‘freely grant accommodations to all,’ yet they will not offer accommodations to religious students to access educational opportunities without sacrificing their bodily privacy.”
“The district must let parents be the ones to make decisions about their children’s privacy,” Anderson continued. “And they must provide the information necessary and inform parents about the policy so every parent can make the best decisions for their children. The district must grant our clients’ reasonable request for accommodations that can be accomplished in a number of confidential ways that protect the privacy of all students.”
JeffCo’s policy directs that students should be “assigned to share overnight accommodations with other students that share the student’s gender identity” rather than rooming by sex. The district tells parents that “girls will be roomed together on one floor, and boys will be roomed together on a different floor,” but what officials fail to disclose is that they have redefined the words “girl” and “boy” to mean a student’s self-asserted “gender identity” rather than sex. JeffCo refuses to give parents truthful, pertinent information about their children’s overnight accommodations, thus hampering parents’ ability to make informed decisions about their children’s education and privacy.
In addition to Joe and Serena Wailes, Bret and Susanne Roller, and Rob and Jade Perlman, a fourth family has joined the lawsuit, alleging that JeffCo ignored more than eight accommodation requests and forced them to either pick up their daughter from an overnight camp called Outdoor Lab every night or risk her rooming overnight with a male student. As a result, they had no choice but to rent a nearby Airbnb to pick up and drop off their daughter at camp every day, while their daughter still missed out on the overnight portion of her trip and faced embarrassment and stigmatization by other students.
ADF attorneys filed the renewed motion for preliminary injunction in Wailes v. Jefferson County Public Schools in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.
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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