Elbert P. Tuttle United States Court of Appeals Building in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo in the public domain)
The discussion of parental rights, gender identity and constitutional standards was buzzing in Florida once again after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a decision March 12 by Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker to dismiss the lawsuit against the Leon County School System filed by a parent for not informing her about her child expressing their gender identity in school.
First Lady Melania Trump invited the mother, January Littlejohn, to President Donald Trump’s Joint Address to Congress March 4. Littlejohn was one of 15 guests invited to represent, “the disaster wrought by the previous administration,” the White House said in a press release.
Littlejohn is also heavily involved with the Florida-based Moms for Liberty, a conservative parental rights organization, and the Do No Harm organization, which identifies as a “national association of medical professionals combating the attack on our healthcare system from woke activists.”
Jeffrey and January Littlejohn filed the case in 2021 against the Leon County School Board, Superintendent Rocky Hanna and other school officials including a Deerlake Middle School counselor.
Judge Robin Rosenbaum wrote that while the student attended Deerlake Middle School in Tallahassee, Florida, the child “asked to go by they/them pronouns and a “male” name, J,” according to Thursday’s published court ruling. The Littlejohns did not allow the name and pronoun changes, but allowed the student to go by “J” as a “nickname”.
The student informed the school counselor about wanting to go by ‘J” and use they/them pronouns. At the time, Deerlake Middle School operated under the county’s 2018 version of the LGBTQ+ Support Guide, which was developed under the supervision of Superintendent Rocky Hanna and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Kathleen Rodgers.
According to the Leon County Schools LGBTQ+ Critical Support guide, the document “is intended to be a tool for schools, students and their parents and legal guardians to effectively navigate existing laws, regulations and policies that support LGBTQ+ LCS students. It provides guidance to ensure that all students are treated equitably and with dignity at a school.”
The 2018 guide instructed school officials to not report a student’s sexuality or identity to the parent and provided the guidelines to create a personalized support guide for the student, which triggered the lawsuit.
According to the Q&A section of the guide, “Outing a student, especially to parents, can be very dangerous to the student[’]s health and well-being. Some students are not able to be out at home because their parents are unaccepting of LGBTQ+ people out.”
“In compliance with the board’s guidelines at the time, school officials developed a gender identity-related ‘Student Support Plan’ for and with the child without the Littlejohns’ involvement and contrary to the Littlejohns’ wishes,” Rosenbaum wrote in a concurring opinion.
The appeals court said that the legal precedent was whether school officials’ actions “shocked the conscience.” Rosenbaum wrote that it did not in his opinion.
Rosenbaum said that the school sought to help the child, therefore “the mere fact that the school officials acted contrary to the Littlejohns’ wishes does not mean that their conduct ‘shocks the conscience’ in a constitutional sense.”
In a concurring opinion, Judge Kevin Newsom agreed that the actions were not unconstitutional, but critiqued the school system.
“The question for me, therefore, isn’t whether the defendants’ conduct was shameful, but rather whether it was unconstitutional,” Newsom wrote.
“First, I think the defendants’ conduct here — in essence, hiding from the Littlejohns the fact that their 13-year-old daughter had expressed a desire to identify as a boy at school — was shameful. If I were a legislator, I’d vote to change the policy that enabled the defendants’ efforts to keep the Littlejohns in the dark. But — and it’s a big but — judges aren’t just politicians in robes, and they don’t (or certainly shouldn’t) just vote their personal preferences.” Newsom wrote.
Judge Gerald Tjoflat dissented, arguing that the Littlejohns are “entitled to a day in court on the merits of their claims that the defendant executives violated their parental rights.”
Tjoflat also said that the shocks-the-conscience standard is “illogical, unauthorized, and atextual,” and it “denies the Littlejohns the ability to vindicate their fundamental right to raise their child.”
The Leon County School Board published an updated LGBTQ+ Student Support Guide in 2022. The lawsuit was also filed before the Parental Rights in Education Law was signed, regulating the information and decisions parents do and do not have access to.
Superintendent Rocky Hana was not available for comment at the ruling. According to Tallahassee Democrat, Hana addressed the case when it was first dismissed by by Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker. “Unfortunately, this unnecessary lawsuit has now cost our school district — and ultimately taxpayers — thousands of dollars that otherwise would have gone to support the education of our children.”
