Parents Defending Education (Defending Ed) reported that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit struck down an Ohio school district’s pronoun policy, which penalizes students if they refuse to lie about pronouns.
The Olentangy Local School District’s excuse for suppressing speech is to promote inclusion and stop bullying. The court didn’t buy the argument. Free speech is a fundamental right in the United States, and whatever the school district intended to achieve does not overcome the First Amendment’s guarantee.
The school district conjured up a whole new category of prohibited speech: “misgendering.” But referring to a boy pretending to be a girl as “he” and “him” is not misgendering. It’s a fact. To do otherwise is to lie and participate in another individual’s fantasies. From Defending Ed:
The originally challenged policies also violated the Fourteenth Amendment by regulating students’ speech outside school; the district’s cell phone policy and the Code of Conduct infringe on parental rights, because how students use their devices off school grounds to discuss gender issues is the responsibility of their families and not the government.
The Olentangy Local School District, with a straight face, apparently, wanted to police students’ speech outside school as well — even in their own homes. How did officials think they could get away with something so blatantly ridiculous and wrong?
The school district obviously knew the level of judicial scrutiny the policy would trigger and tried to adjust it. They watered down the policy in an attempt to pass constitutional muster. The Sixth Circuit said “these modest changes do not moot the threatened freedom-of-speech injury…”
“The court’s decision – and its many concurrences – articulate the importance of free speech, the limits and perils of public schools claiming to act in loco parentis, and the critical role of persuasion – rather than coercion – in America’s public square,” said Nicole Neily, Defending Ed’s founder and president.
