WHO: Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys and clients
WHAT: Press conference regarding Wailes v. Jefferson County Public Schools
WHEN: Immediately following hearing, which begins at 9 a.m. MDT, Tuesday, May 12
WHERE: U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, Byron White U.S. Courthouse, 1823 Stout St., Denver, Courtroom II; or view the livestream; press conference will take place outside the courthouse following the arguments. To schedule an interview, contact ADF Media Relations Manager Hattie Troutman at (771) 200-7630.
DENVER – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing several Colorado families will participate in a press conference Tuesday following a hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Wailes v. Jefferson County Public Schools.
Joe and Serena Wailes, Bret and Susanne Roller, Rob and Jade Perlman, and their children are suing Jefferson County Public Schools over the district’s policy of assigning males who identify as girls to female hotel rooms (and vice versa) on overnight school trips. The families are challenging the policy for violating parents’ fundamental right to make important decisions about their children’s care, upbringing, and education.
“Parents, not government bureaucrats, have the right and responsibility to direct their children’s care, upbringing and education, and that includes the right to participate in consequential decisions like whether a child will room with the opposite sex on an overnight trip,” said ADF Senior Counsel Noel Sterett, who will be arguing before the court. “This fundamental right is especially vital for all parents who wish to raise their children according to their religious values and protect their children’s bodily privacy. Jefferson County Public Schools claims to ‘freely grant accommodations to all,’ yet they will not offer equal accommodations to religious students who want to fully participate on overnight trips without violating their faith and sacrificing their privacy.”
The families are asking the court to stop the district from requiring their children to share bedrooms and shower facilities with students of the opposite sex on school-sponsored overnight trips. The district’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.
The school district’s policy directs that students who identify as the opposite sex be “assigned to share overnight accommodations with other students that share the student’s gender identity”—rather than their sex. Yet, the district still tells parents that “girls will be roomed together on one floor, and boys will be roomed together on a different floor.” But officials fail to disclose that the words “girl” and “boy” may only reflect a student’s self-asserted “gender identity.” The district refuses to give parents truthful, pertinent information about their children’s overnight accommodations, hampering parents’ ability to make informed decisions about their children’s education and privacy.
ADF attorneys appealed to the 10th Circuit after a lower court dismissed the parents’ claims: The Waileses’ 11-year-old daughter was assigned to share a room—and was supposed to share a bed—with a male student on an overnight school trip. The Rollers discovered, after their young son’s school trip, that the school district had assigned a female to share his cabin and monitor his showers. The Perlmans’ daughter suffered sexual harassment at a district middle school, and therefore they will not risk the district rooming her with a boy.
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.
# # #