Littlejohn v. School Board of Leon is about whether a school violates parental rights when instructing students on matters pertaining to gender and sexuality without the parents’ consent.
Case Status
- Denied review
ERLC Brief
- Amicus brief joined by ERLC
What is this case about?
Jeffrey and January Littlejohn are parents in Leon County, Florida, where the local school board instituted a support guide directing school officials to conceal from parents when a student wishes to identify as transgender. When the Littlejohns 13-year-old daughter told school officials that she wanted to identify as “nonbinary,” the school developed a “gender support plan” without notifying her parents. The plan instructed for the Littlejohn’s daughter to use “they/them” pronouns at school and a different name, but “she/her” pronouns and her given name when communicating with her parents.
Upon accidentally learning about the school’s deception, the Littlejohns sued in federal court, arguing their constitutional parental rights to direct their child’s upbringing, make medical and mental health decisions for their child, and familial privacy were violated.
The district court dismissed the case arguing it needed to be settled in state courts rather than federal. This ruling was upheld by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. In response, the Littlejohns petitioned the Supreme Court to review their case.
What is the question in the case?
Whether, when a plaintiff alleges that the application of a state policy infringed a fundamental right “‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,’” a court can deny relief because the infringement did not “shock the conscience.”
Why does it matter to Southern Baptists?
Southern Baptists desire to see children protected from a culture that has bought into a sexual revolution intending to separate them from God’s good design for their lives. In the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, we celebrate God’s gift of gender for our good. Southern Baptists have explicitly expressed their condemnation of the “harmful and often irreversible ‘gender transition’ experiments on vulnerable minors and young adults” (2023 resolution On Opposing “Gender Transitions”).
Parents do not surrender their rights to their children when they drop their child off in the carpool line. Shameful attempts by public schools to deceive parents and children alike in furtherance of a radical gender ideology is both unconstitutional and an affront to the God-ordained institution of the family.
News about the case
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