{"id":58056,"date":"2026-04-27T10:23:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T14:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tvdelmarva.com\/wp\/supreme-court-wont-hear-florida-parents-school-gender-policy-case\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T10:23:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T14:23:31","slug":"supreme-court-wont-hear-florida-parents-school-gender-policy-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tvdelmarva.com\/wp\/supreme-court-wont-hear-florida-parents-school-gender-policy-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Won’t Hear Florida Parents’ School Gender Policy Case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

The nation’s highest court on Monday refused to consider a legal challenge brought by Florida parents against their local school district regarding policies that allow students to change names and pronouns without parental notification.<\/p>

The justices dismissed an appeal from January and Jeffrey Littlejohn, whose child identified as nonbinary while enrolled at Deerlake Middle School in Tallahassee. A federal appeals court had previously thrown out their case. This marks another similar rejection by the Supreme Court, following a comparable Massachusetts case turned away just last week.<\/p>

The Littlejohns argued that school administrators violated their constitutional parental rights under the 14th Amendment’s due process clause by treating their child as nonbinary and concealing this information from them.<\/p>

These types of legal battles over transgender student privacy protections are happening nationwide, with the Supreme Court having previously rejected similar challenges from Wisconsin and Maryland.<\/p>

However, the court took a different stance in March regarding California, blocking state measures that would have restricted schools from sharing transgender students’ gender identity information with parents without the student’s approval.<\/p>

In that California case, the court’s conservative majority ruled 6-3 that such policies likely infringed on due process rights and conflicted with Christian parents’ religious views about gender and sexuality.<\/p>

The Supreme Court is also dealing with broader transgender rights restrictions pushed by former President Donald Trump’s administration and Republican-controlled states.<\/p>

Last June, the court supported a Tennessee law prohibiting gender-affirming medical treatment for transgender youth. In January, the justices seemed inclined to uphold state bans preventing transgender athletes from competing on girls’ sports teams.<\/p>

According to legal documents, the Littlejohns claimed that Deerlake Middle School officials established what they called a “covert gender affirmation plan” in 2020 for their 13-year-old after the student started questioning their gender identity. The parents had denied permission for their child to adopt a new name and use “they\/them” pronouns.<\/p>

The Leon County School Board had created guidance in 2018 for situations when students reveal they are transgender or gender non-conforming. Recognizing the risks of exposing such students, the policy required officials to obtain the student’s permission before contacting parents.<\/p>

The family filed their federal lawsuit against the school board and specific officials in 2021. They contended that the board’s gender support guidelines and withholding of information violated their 14th Amendment parental rights, which the Supreme Court has historically recognized as fundamental to directing children’s care and upbringing.<\/p>

A federal judge initially dismissed their case, and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta confirmed that ruling in 2025. The appeals court determined that under Supreme Court legal standards, the parents’ type of claim requires that public officials’ rights violations must “shock the conscience” – which this situation did not.<\/p>

The appellate court noted that school officials never compelled the Littlejohns’ child to take any specific actions.<\/p>

“And perhaps most importantly, defendants did not act with intent to injure. To the contrary, they sought to help the child,” the court stated.<\/p>

The school board has since revised its guidance following a 2021 Florida law strengthening parental rights. The updated policy now states that officials cannot withhold information from parents “unless a reasonably prudent person would believe that disclosure would result in abuse, abandonment or neglect.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The nation’s highest court declined to review a lawsuit by Florida parents who challenged their school district’s policy of not telling parents about students’ gender identity changes without the child’s permission. The case involved a middle school in Tallahassee where parents claimed officials violated their constitutional rights by supporting their child’s nonbinary identity without their knowledge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":58055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[833],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tvdelmarva.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/news-1777299810923.jpg?fit=450%2C338&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbtNqq-f6o","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":54915,"url":"https:\/\/tvdelmarva.com\/wp\/supreme-court-wont-hear-parents-challenge-to-mass-school-gender-policy\/","url_meta":{"origin":58056,"position":0},"title":"Supreme Court Won’t Hear Parents’ Challenge to Mass. 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