Supreme Court Says California Schools Should Notify Parents About Student Gender Changes

Thomas Snitzer Jr, will not be rebranded into the Ayatollah Nancy Snitzer. At least while I'm running the Report.

Supreme Court Says California Schools Should Notify Parents About Student Gender Changes

Court reinstates judge’s injunction barring schools from using new names, pronouns for students if parents object

By James Romoser, WSJ

March 2, 2026 8:18 pm ET

The Supreme Court ruled California public schools can’t keep parents uninformed if children express a gender identity not aligning with their birth sex.

WASHINGTON—California public schools can’t keep parents in the dark if their children express a gender identity that doesn’t align with their sex recorded at birth, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The court, in a split decision, concluded that parents likely have a constitutional right to be informed if their children adopt new pronouns, use a different name or take other steps to socially transition to a new gender identity while at school.

“When a child exhibits symptoms of gender dysphoria at school, California’s policies conceal that information from parents and facilitate a degree of gender transitioning during school hours,” the court wrote in an unsigned seven-page opinion that decided a case on its emergency docket. “These policies likely violate parents’ rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children.”

It was the first of two significant rulings on the emergency docket that the court issued Monday evening. In a separate case, the court halted an effort to redraw a Republican congressional district in New York City after a judge found that its existing boundaries dilute the power of Black and Latino voters.

The court’s three Democratic-appointed justices dissented from both rulings.

The California case involved a state policy that allowed transgender students to socially transition in school without their parents being automatically notified. The high court’s ruling bars the state from enforcing that policy while litigation over its legality continues.

Despite the nominally temporary nature of the decision, Justice Elena Kagan in dissent criticized the majority for using “shortcut procedures on the emergency docket” to essentially resolve a complex legal question without full briefing or arguments.

“Today’s decision shows, not for the first time, how our emergency docket can malfunction,” she wrote, adding: “The court is impatient: It already knows what it thinks, and insists on getting everything over quickly.”

For months, the justices have been weighing other petitions involving similar policies in school districts in other states. Those petitions asked the justices to hear oral arguments and definitively resolve a key burgeoning dispute about young people who identify as transgender.

On one side of the dispute is the well-established right of parents to control how their children are raised. On the other side is the reality that some minors don’t want their parents to know about their gender identity, sometimes because they fear for their safety. Some public schools have policies that honor students’ desire for privacy.

In the California case, four parents and four teachers alleged that the state’s policy unconstitutionally barred school employees from telling parents about a child’s gender identity without the child’s consent. A federal trial judge sided with the parents and teachers, blocking the state from enforcing the policy and barring school employees statewide from using new names and pronouns for students if their parents objected.

The high court reinstated that ruling after an appeals panel had put it on hold.

California says the challengers have mischaracterized the state’s rules about student privacy. The state says its actual policy is that individual schools should decide whether to disclose a student’s gender identity to parents by balancing the parents’ interests with the needs and well-being of the student.

The Supreme Court’s other ruling on Monday evening involved New York’s 11th congressional district, which encompasses all of Staten Island and parts of southern Brooklyn. It is the only House district in New York City held by a Republican.

A state trial judge found that the district’s lines weakened the ability of Black and Latino voters to elect their preferred candidates, and he ordered the state’s redistricting commission to redraw the district in a way that would increase the influence of minority voters. In practice, that would have meant adding more Democratic-leaning voters into the district, potentially converting it from a safe Republican seat into a swing seat.

But the Supreme Court, in a one-paragraph order, lifted the trial judge’s ruling while litigation proceeds, making it likely that this year’s midterm elections will use the existing district lines.

Unlike in the court’s traditional opinions in argued cases, emergency rulings don’t always reveal how each justice voted. The California decision indicated that five conservative justices—Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett—voted to block the California policy, while the court’s three liberals—Kagan and Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson—dissented. Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch’s vote wasn’t accounted for.

The New York decision indicated that Alito was in the majority and that Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson all dissented. It didn’t specify the other members of the majority.