Doe v. Bethel Local School District Board of Education

The following quote may be attributed to Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Vincent Wagner regarding a friend-of-the-court brief ADF attorneys filed Wednesday on behalf of a Wisconsin mother with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Doe v. Bethel Local School District Board of Education, a case in which a school district adopted a policy that allows students to access private spaces according to gender identity—rather than sex—without any public discussion or vote:

“Parents have a fundamental right to direct the upbringing, education, and healthcare of their children. School districts across the country are increasingly violating parents’ rights by leaving them out of key decisions about their own children. More and more, school districts are adopting policies that require school staff to treat children as the opposite sex—in many cases, without parental consent or even notice. But the Constitution protects parents’ fundamental right to make decisions about how to care for their children and the right to access information necessary to make such decisions. In Wisconsin, for example, one mother sued her school district for violating her parental rights by treating her daughter as a boy, and she won. In this case, we have filed a brief for her urging the 6th Circuit to protect the rights of the parents here to the information they need to make good decisions for their children.”

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.

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