This winter brought a wave of legal battles that could reshape public education.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear cases on religious charter schools and LGBTQ+ lesson opt-outs, while lower courts weighed in on hot-button issues like parental rights in gender identity policies, desegregation oversight, and teachers’ use of students’ pronouns.
Here’s a look at some education-related court cases from this winter. These cases span from late December through mid-March.
After 50 years, this school district is no longer segregated, court says
A federal appeals court declared that the Tucson, Ariz., school district has reached the point where it’s considered legally desegregated. The district has operated under a court-supervised desegregation plan for nearly 50 years.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, unanimously upheld a 2022 decision by a federal district judge in Tucson that court supervision was no longer necessary.
Unless a larger panel of the 9th Circuit or the Supreme Court intervenes, the decision will bring an end to nearly a half century of court supervision for the 40,000-student district, which in 2023-24 had an enrollment that was 62 percent Hispanic/Latino, 18 percent white, 10 percent Black, 4 percent Native American, 2 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, and 4 percent multiracial.
Can parents opt kids out of reading LGBTQ+ books? The Supreme Court will decide
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal of parents who object on religious grounds to a Maryland school district’s policy of preventing them from opting their children out of LGBTQ+ inclusive “storybooks” used in elementary English/language arts classes.
Lower courts had refused to block the policy of the 160,000-student Montgomery County school district, and the parents’ case has become a rallying point among groups fighting sexual orientation- and gender identity-inclusive school policies.
A federal appeals court’s ruling “that parents essentially surrender their right to direct the religious upbringing of their children by sending them to public schools … contradicts centuries of our history and traditions,” says the appeal, filed by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty on behalf of a group of Christian and Muslim parents who objected to the books.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the parental opt-out case, signed by Acting U.S. Solicitor General Sarah M. Harris. She argues that the religious parents who object to the LGBTQ+ “storybooks” used as curricular resources in the 160,000-student Montgomery County, Md., school system have a free exercise right to keep their children from such lessons.
- Read more about the school system’s approved books and the no opt-out policy. 🔎
- Read about how Harris says the no opt-out policy “burdens [parents’] religious practice.” 🔎
Legal fights highlight clashes over transgender students’ pronouns in schools
The rollback of protections for transgender students and fresh legal developments over whether teachers can refuse to use students’ chosen names and pronouns on religious grounds have thrust the fight over transgender rights in schools into a new era.
The Trump administration has removed Biden-era guidance supporting transgender students and the U.S. Supreme Court will take up a case about whether parents may raise religious objections to LGBTQ+ lessons in public schools.
Nnow, a related issue that has been percolating for years—whether public school teachers may refuse to use transgender students’ names and pronouns that don’t align with their sex at birth—is getting fresh judicial scrutiny.
Are religious charter schools legal? The Supreme Court will decide soon
The U.S. Supreme Court will take up a potentially momentous case about religious charter schools, involving issues that could radically alter the character of American education, both in terms of school choice and state funding of public education.
The court on Jan. 24 granted review of two related appeals stemming from the effort to establish a state-funded Catholic virtual charter school in Oklahoma. That state’s supreme court last year ruled that the proposed St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School—which would be sponsored and controlled by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and Diocese of Tulsa but would receive state per-pupil charter school funding—would violate both the state and federal constitutions.
The U.S. Supreme Court set briefing deadlines that indicate the case will be scheduled for arguments in late April, with a decision expected by late June or early July.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration filed a friend-of-the-court brief on March 12 by Acting U.S. Solicitor General Sarah M. Harris arguing that the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling wrongly excluded a religious-based charter school from the state’s publicly funded charter program.
- Read more about how supporters of the Catholic charter school look to recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings. 🔎
- Read more about how the Trump administration essentially rejects the traditional view of charter schools as a form of public school. 🔎
Parents lose appeal over school’s gender identity notification policy
A federal appeals court has rejected a parental-rights-based objection to a Massachusetts school district’s policy of allowing students to determine whether their parents should be notified about gender transitions and their choice of new names and pronouns.
The policy “plausibly creates a space for students to express their identity without worrying about parental backlash,” said a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, in Boston. “By cultivating an environment where students may feel safe in expressing their gender identity, the protocol endeavors to remove psychological barriers for transgender students and equalizes educational opportunities.”
The Feb. 18 decision in Foote v. Ludlow School Committee comes amid a conservative-led backlash to school policies supporting transgender students, including President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders declaring that there are only two sexes and instructing his administration to develop policies to prohibit public schools from assisting gender transitions and to bar transgender students from girls’ sports. The U.S. Supreme Court, with a six-justice conservative majority, has signaled a growing interest in transgender issues in education.
Schools may get relief from overcharges after Supreme Court ruling on E-rate
The federal E-rate program that funds internet connections in education is subject to a major anti-fraud statute, potentially bolstering schools that have been allegedly overcharged by telecommunications companies, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Feb. 21.
In its unanimous decision in Wisconsin Bell Inc. v. United States ex rel. Heath, the court rejected arguments by an AT&T Corp. subsidiary that the $4 billion program is entirely privately funded through the payments from telecommunications companies to a private administrator and thus not subject to the False Claims Act, a Civil War-era law that allows private parties to help root out fraud in federal programs.
Supreme Court won’t take up case on schools’ bias-response policies
Over the dissents of two justices, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a case about whether educational institutions’ bias-reporting policies targeting hateful or derogatory speech have a chilling effect on students.
The case involved Indiana University’s bias-response teams. But one conservative advocacy group told the court that such policies and teams also “pervade K-12 schools,” which “are always eager to mimic their higher education comrades.”
Parents lose appeal in gender case Trump called ‘child abuse’
A federal appeals court has ruled against two Florida parents who allege a school district aided their child’s “secret” gender transition in a case highlighted by President Donald Trump in his address to Congress last week.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, ruled 2-1 on March 12 that January and Jeffrey Littlejohn could not prevail on their parental-rights claim under the 14th Amendment’s due-process clause because school officials’ actions did not “shock the conscience.”
The story of the Littlejohns and their child, who was assigned female at birth and sought to transition at age 13 in 2020 at their Tallahassee, Fla., middle school, has been a conservative cause for years, and was even cited by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in his successful effort to enact a law limiting what schools could teach and speak about sexual orientation and gender identity.
On March 6, January Littlejohn was in the VIP guest gallery of the House sitting near first lady Melania Trump when President Trump mentioned the family in his joint address.
