California has bicoastal company in its efforts to drastically reinterpret a Supreme Court precedent that reinstated a permanent injunction against the Golden State's so-called gender secrecy policies in public schools, with the majority citing a century of parental rights precedents that it said lower courts were ignoring.

Moms for Liberty is suing a New York City suburb on behalf of unnamed members with children there, seeking to force New Jersey's Chathams School District to notify and give parents veto power over their children's "asserted 'gender transition'" and "social transition-related accommodations," arguing a trio of related policies violate the Mirabelli precedent.

School Board President Ann Ciccarelli argued at a June 15 public meeting that the high court's March 2 emergency order was "not binding" on New Jersey public schools, in response to demands from parents to eliminate a policy requiring schools to "accept a student’s asserted gender identity regardless of parent consent or involvement."

SCOTUS scolded the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Mirabelli for having "brushed aside" its 2025 precedent Mahmoud, which required school districts to notify and get consent from parents before exposing their children to LGBTQ "storybooks," by wrongly limiting it to curricular decisions.

"The Chathams Board of Education’s open defiance of the Supreme Court’s clear rulings in Mirabelli and Mahmoud is an assault on the constitutional rights of every family in that district," Moms for Liberty CEO Tina Descovich said.

Ciccarelli and schools Superintendent Emily Sortino did not answer Just the News queries for their explanation of how Mirabelli doesn't apply to Chathams' challenged policies: gender secrecy and mandatory use of preferred pronouns, with punishments even "for conduct away from school grounds" – plausibly prohibited by the Mahanoy precedent.

Even as LGBTQ publication The Advocate warned that Moms for Liberty was "suing to expose the kids" in Chathams who identify as the opposite sex, it conceded that SCOTUS "signaled" the Mirabelli parents "are likely to prevail on the merits" in the ongoing case before U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, who issued the permanent injunction last year.

Wasting taxpayer money trying to overturn SCOTUS

The New Jersey parents' lawyers are also pressing the 9th Circuit to reject California's arguments that Mirabelli does not require its schools to affirmatively tell parents about their children's social transitions, lets schools hide that fact if parents "would engage in abuse" and does not require parents' permission for social transitions.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta's opening brief three months ago argued that Benitez's permanent injunction "conflicts with the reasoning" of SCOTUS in its March 2 emergency order, highlighting the high court's approval of a theoretical policy that "allows religious exemptions while precluding gender-identity disclosure to parents who would engage in abuse.”

"California’s decision to treat that single holding as 'principal,' while ignoring the rest of what the Supreme Court said, is inexplicable," the Thomas More Society wrote on behalf of the parents and teachers who challenged the policy, referring to California's lone concession: Schools must be honest with parents who ask whether their children are being socially transitioned.

While the Benitez injunction does not literally include "an affirmative obligation for schools to notify parents about their child’s gender incongruence," the judge's initial relief in Mirabelli says parents "have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses gender incongruence," its answering brief says.

While California may have "a narrow path to justify continuing to prosecute this appeal," the state admits "there are no disputed material facts," the Thomas More Society wrote, arguing it's just relitigating its failed arguments "since the beginning of this case."

The state's gambit to convince the 9th Circuit – already stung by SCOTUS in Mirabelli – to muddle a clear precedent will "produce more rulings against California and a larger fee award at taxpayer expense," Thomas More Society special counsel Paul Jonna said Friday.

The religious liberty law firm is encouraging parents to reach out if their districts still maintain gender-secrecy policies, providing a sample demand letter. 

The U.S. Department of Education also reminded "state and local education agencies" this week that gender-secrecy policies endanger their federal funding under its interpretation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Its "Dear Colleague" letter noted its January findings against California for its FERPA faux pas.

District falsely passes the buck to the state, parents claim

Unlike the Mirabelli parents' arguments at the 9th Circuit, which emphasize "all parents [...] have the right to notice and consent," the Chathams parents' lawsuit emphasizes their religious beliefs as grounds for their right to know whether their children are being socially transitioned, and for their children to refuse to use peers' preferred pronouns.

"Activist school boards across the country are radically interfering with the moral and religious development of the impressionable and suggestible children in their captive audiences" through transition policies that teach gender is "a child’s personal choice" but "religiously motivated parents view as an ineradicable divine election," the suit says.

The district's secret-transition policy claims it's required by the state education commissioner, when, in fact, it's in nonbinding guidelines, and gives school counselors the "sole discretion" over "whether, and to what extent" parents can be involved in their children's gender transition. 

It also requires sports participation and locker room and bathroom access by gender identity, hidden from the transgender child's parents and "other parents who would object to this imposition on their own children, which many view as a form of sexual harassment and child abuse," Moms for Liberty argues.

The preferred-pronoun mandate works with the harassment policy and code of conduct, threatening discipline up to expulsion against students for obeying their parents' direction to "conscientiously refuse to lie" by not treating classmates as the opposite sex. Superintendent Sortino can unilaterally punish them for even social media violations, the suit says.

The Chathams parents also object to the transition policy's "confidential" referral of students to transgender "support" groups that, in fact, advocate for and encourage "sexual behaviors radically contrary" to their Christian beliefs.

The district didn't respond to the Thomas More Society's May 26 demand that it either rescind or suspend the transition policy until a version compatible with Mirabellli is finished, accompanied by a preservation demand letter that typically precedes litigation, the suit says.

Ciccarelli instead insisted at the board's June 15 meeting that Mirabelli is inapplicable and that New Jersey discrimination law, education commissioner regulations and state department of education guidance are "binding," which the lawsuit portrays as "false and misleading" portrayals of those state documents.

The policies violate the First Amendment free exercise of religion and free speech rights of parents and children and 14th Amendment due process rights of the parents, they say.