The Supreme Court declined to take up a case over the constitutionality of a school’s policy hiding student gender transitions from parents on Monday, a week after the justices passed on taking up a similar case for its next term.
The justices declined to add Littlejohn v. School Board of Leon County to its argument calendar for its next term, effectively punting on the issue of secret gender transitions at schools after the justices handed parents a key win on the matter via their emergency docket earlier this year. The Littlejohn case involved the parents of a 13-year-old girl for whom they say a Florida school devised a secret “gender support” plan and advised staff not to inform the parents about it.
Last week, the high court declined to take up Foote v. Ludlow School Committee, which dealt with the parents of a middle school girl claiming officials at her Massachusetts school secretly gender-transitioned their daughter during school hours and actively hid her use of a different name, pronouns, and bathroom facilities from her parents. In both the Foote and Littlejohn cases, the parents bringing the lawsuits claimed the policies violate their constitutional rights by intentionally withholding information about their children.
The high court did not elaborate on its decision not to take up either the Foote or Littlejohn cases, but the justices did offer a lengthy explanation when they maintained a block on California’s policy of hiding student gender transitions from parents in the emergency docket case Mirabelli v. Bonta.
With the March order in Mirabelli, the high court ruled 6-3 in favor of blocking the policy by invoking its 2025 ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which upheld parents’ rights to opt their children out of LGBT materials at school and found that not permitting such an option violated the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.
“Under long-established precedent, parents—not the State—have primary authority with respect to ‘the upbringing and education of children,’” the Mirabelli ruling reads. “The right protected by these precedents includes the right not to be shut out of participation in decisions regarding their children’s mental health.”
SUPREME COURT DECLINES TO HEAR CHALLENGE TO SCHOOLS HIDING STUDENT GENDER TRANSITIONS FROM PARENTS
With the Foote and Littlejohn cases not being taken up by the high court, the earliest the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to school secret gender transition policy would be the end of its next term, which spans from October to the end of June 2027.
In the high court’s Monday orders list, the justices announced they would take up a case challenging the Department of Labor’s authority to adjudicate claims and collect fines from employers it determines violated the terms and conditions of employment for workers. The case, Department of Labor v. Sun Valley Orchards, is expected to be argued sometime between October 2026 and April 2027.