As public schools are increasingly captured by fashionable ideologies around gender identity, not only are voices of dissent being silenced in public, but students are being made to affirm government-imposed orthodoxies in their schools, whether or not they actually believe.
This cannot stand. Schools are not training grounds for ideological conformity, and students—like all Americans—have a First Amendment right against being compelled to say what the government wants them to say.
Parents Defending Education (PDE) is a nationwide grassroots association of parents, students, and concerned citizens pushing back against the politicization of K-12 schools. It brought a lawsuit on behalf of parents and children in the Olentangy, Ohio, school district where they are subject to rules compelling them to use pronouns based on other students’ professed gender identities, rather than pronouns based on sex.
PDE is the plaintiff because the parents and children feel like they must remain anonymous, out of the reasonable fear that they may face retaliation. But their lawsuit seeks an order preventing the school district from requiring the use of gender-identity-based pronouns, and to vindicate the rights of Olentangy students to be free from government-compelled speech.
Southeastern Legal Foundation and Mountain States Legal Foundation filed a brief in support of PDE’s efforts.
Case Background
In the important case of West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the Supreme Court said,
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
For the better part of a century, it has been clear that public schools may not force students to mouth allegiance to ideals and principles that they do not actually hold. That means that a school may not punish a student who declines to say the pledge of allegiance, either because of their religion, or for no reason at all.
It also means a that school may not compel students to act as if they agree with one side of the gender identity debate, even if they disagree. Requiring students to use gender identity-based, rather than sex-based pronouns, does exactly that—it forces students to, in effect, mouth their agreement to the ideological notion that gender identity trumps sex, whether or not they agree.
Parents Defending Education challenged the Olentangy school district’s attempt to enforce ideological conformity. The District Court denied PDE’s motion for a preliminary injunction and PDE appealed. Mountain States and Southeastern Legal Foundation have joined PDE’s fight on appeal.
Join the Fight
Since 1977, MSLF has fought to protect private property rights, individual liberties, and economic freedom. MSLF is a nonprofit public interest legal foundation. We represent clients pro bono and receive no government funding. Make your 100% tax deductible contribution today and join the fight.
What’s at Stake
Mountain States and SLF are offering an amicus brief in support of PDE, because PDE represents students and parents who are pushing back on compelled speech in schools.
We make the argument in our brief that students do not lose all of their free speech rights once they enter school, and that compelling their speech through “preferred pronoun” policies is especially troubling. Additionally, the school district’s policies are so vague that they leave students as sitting ducks whenever an administrator feels like punishing students for violating them.
Case Timeline
- February 2023: Olentangy School Board adopted an interpretation of various policies, including “anti-harassment” policy, that requires students to refer to other students using the gender-identity-based pronouns of their choice, whether or not those pronouns match the sex of the person being referenced
- May 2023: PDE brought a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio to vindicate the First Amendment rights of children enrolled in Olentangy schools against compelled speech.
- July 2023: The District Court denied PDE’s motion for a preliminary injunction seeking an order preventing the school district from enforcing its speech codes—PDE filed an appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
- October 2023: MSLF filed amicus brief in support of PDE’s appeal.
- December 2024: MSLF filed amicus brief in support of PDE’s petition for rehearing en banc.
