Greg Burt, vice president of California Family Council, tells AFN the judge’s ruling last week was celebrated by parents and teachers who are fighting their own local and state government to stop transgender ideology in the school classrooms.
"The judge said one of the most fundamental rights that parents have in this country is to make decisions concerning the care, custody control, and especially medical care,” Burt, quoting directly from the ruling, says.
The lawsuit is Mirabelli v. Olson. It was filed by two middle school teachers, Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West, to expose and repeal a “parental exclusion policy” in the Escondido Union School District.
The teachers are represented by the Thomas More Society.
In his ruling, which rejected Bonta’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez wrote that a parent’s right to make decisions for their children “is one of the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests that Americans enjoy.”
That clear defense of parents, from a federal judge, comes after California’s few conservative public school districts defended parental rights 2 1/2 years ago only to be punished by Bonta for doing so.
“Students should never fear going to school for simply being who they are,” Bonta lectured those schools at the time.
The most prominent school district to take action was Chino Valley, which serves 32,000 students southeast of Los Angeles.
After its school board approved a parental notification policy in 2023, Bonta announced a “civil rights investigation” into Chino Valley for what he called the “forced outing” of transgender students. He then sued to stop it.
Sonja Shaw, who leads the Chino Valley School, told AFN two years ago the school board was “going to stand firm” and fight Bonta and his lawsuit.
During a legal fight to stop Bonta, those few pockets of right-wing resistance in left-wing California were eventually outmaneuvered by passage of AB 1955. That bill, signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year, overrules parental notification policies passed by Chino Valley and other school boards.
Despite the fact he sued Chino Valley and other school districts, and helped pass a state law to exclude parents, Bonta's motion to dismiss brazenly claimed the anti-parent policies were "just a suggestion" for school districts to follow.
Judge Benitez didn't buy it. In his ruling, which came six months after Newsom signed AB 1955, Benitez ripped any school policy that compels teachers to deceive parents. He wrote that teachers “do not completely forfeit their First Amendment rights in exchange for public school employment.”
“Now the lawsuit is expanding,” Burt advises. “They want to make it a class-action lawsuit that includes all California school districts.”
