In a blow to parental rights, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to intervene in a case where a Florida school district actively hid a daughter’s gender transition from her mother and father.
By turning away the appeal from January and Jeffrey Littlejohn, the high court has effectively left a door open for “woke” school bureaucracies to continue driving a wedge between parents and their children under the guise of student privacy.
The case exposes the radical lengths to which the Leon County School Board went to bypass the family unit. Despite the Littlejohns specifically telling the school they did not consent to a formal gender transition for their middle-school daughter, administrators held a clandestine meeting with the girl.
Without a phone call or an invitation to the parents, a counselor, social worker, and principal sat down with the minor to finalize a “support plan” that affirmed her use of they/them pronouns and a nonbinary identity.
READ: Indiana Mom Used 5-Year-Old Daughter To Sell OnlyFans Content Online, Faces 72 Years
The school’s justification relied on a 2018 guide that essentially treated parents as a threat, suggesting that “outing” a student to their own family could be “dangerous.”
This policy allowed staff to treat children as the opposite sex while keeping the taxpayers who fund the schools—the parents—completely in the dark.
The Littlejohns only discovered the betrayal because their daughter told them days later. While Florida has since fought back by passing the “Parents’ Bill of Rights” to stop these deceptive practices, the Littlejohns sought justice for the initial violation of their constitutional right to direct the upbringing and healthcare of their child.
Though the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals admitted that the school “infringed” on the Littlejohns’ fundamental rights, it hid behind legal technicalities to dismiss the case.
READ: Florida Sen. Rick Scott Demands Full DHS Funding After Trump Assassination Attempt
By declining to hear the appeal, the Supreme Court has sidestepped a fight that Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch have called an issue of “great and growing national importance.”
For now, the ruling leaves a chilling precedent: in the eyes of the lower courts, a school official’s “support plan” can legally supersede the biological and moral authority of a concerned parent.
The battle for the American family now moves back to state legislatures as the nation’s highest court remains on the sidelines of the culture war.
Please make a small donation to the Tampa Free Press to help sustain independent journalism. Your contribution enables us to continue delivering high-quality, local, and national news coverage.
Sign up: Subscribe to our free newsletter for a curated selection of top stories delivered straight to your inbox
