Justice Alito dropped one warning about what schools are hiding that left parents fired up

The Supreme Court just turned away another parental rights case.

But three conservative Justices sent a message that’s echoing through school districts nationwide.

And Justice Alito dropped one warning about what schools are hiding that left parents fired up.

Alito calls out courts for dodging the parental rights battle

The Supreme Court declined Monday to hear Lee v. Poudre School District R-1, a Colorado case where two sets of parents sued after their daughters attended Gender and Sexualities Alliance meetings where school staff allegedly warned students not to tell their parents about discussions of gender identity.¹

The Court’s refusal to take the case came as no surprise – lower courts had dismissed it on procedural grounds without ever addressing whether schools violated constitutional rights.²

But Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, issued a statement that should have school administrators across the country reaching for their lawyers.³

"I remain concerned that some federal courts are ‘tempt[ed]’ to avoid confronting a ‘particularly contentious constitutional questio[n]’: whether a school district violates parents’ fundamental rights ‘when, without parental knowledge or consent, it encourages a student to transition to a new gender or assists in that process,’" Alito wrote.⁴

The three Justices didn’t just express concern about this one case.

They pointed to a systematic problem playing out in courtrooms nationwide, where judges appear increasingly reluctant to rule on the merits of parental rights challenges involving school gender policies.

Lower courts keep finding technical reasons to dismiss these lawsuits without ever addressing the constitutional question at the heart of them – whether parents have a fundamental right to know what’s happening with their children in school.

The shocking scale of school secrecy policies

Alito revealed a statistic that should alarm every parent in America.

"Petitioners tell us that nearly 6,000 public schools have policies—as respondent allegedly does—that purposefully interfere with parents’ access to critical information about their children’s gender identity choices and school personnel’s involvement in and influence on those choices," the Justice wrote.⁵

Six thousand schools.

That’s not a handful of rogue districts in liberal strongholds.

This represents a coordinated national effort to exclude parents from decisions about their own children’s psychological development and identity formation.

Parents Defending Education maintains a database tracking these policies – as of May 2024, they identified 1,062 public school districts in 38 states and Washington, D.C. with written policies authorizing or requiring staff to withhold gender-related information from parents.⁶

The real number is likely much higher when you count districts with unwritten policies or informal practices.

These policies don’t just passively protect student privacy.

Many actively facilitate social transitions – changing names, pronouns, bathroom access, and more – while explicitly instructing staff to conceal this information from parents unless the child consents to disclosure.

In the Colorado case Alito referenced, one student’s parents pulled her from the school district entirely after discovering what happened at GSA meetings.

The substitute teacher who spoke at the meeting allegedly told students it might not be "safe" to tell their parents about gender identity discussions – planting seeds of distrust between children and the people who love them most.⁷

Courts run from the constitutional showdown

What makes Alito’s statement particularly significant is his observation about lower courts avoiding this "particularly contentious" question.

The pattern is unmistakable.

Parents sue, alleging their Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated when schools facilitated their children’s gender transitions without notice or consent.

District courts dismiss on procedural grounds – lack of standing, failure to state a claim, sovereign immunity.

Appeals courts uphold those dismissals.

The Supreme Court denies review.

Nobody ever rules on whether these policies actually violate the Constitution.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in February 2025 that a Massachusetts school district didn’t violate parental rights when it socially transitioned an 11-year-old girl behind her parents’ backs – even after the parents explicitly told the school not to do this.⁸

The appeals court claimed parental rights are "not unlimited" and that social transitioning isn’t a "medical intervention," so it doesn’t trigger constitutional protections for parental authority over children’s healthcare decisions.⁹

Never mind the growing evidence that social transitions frequently lead to medical interventions like puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.

The legal gymnastics these courts perform to avoid addressing the core constitutional question would be impressive if they weren’t so dangerous.

Three pending cases could force the Court’s hand

Alito’s statement didn’t come in a vacuum.

The Supreme Court currently has at least three separate petitions pending that present variations of the same fundamental question about parental rights and school gender policies.¹⁰

In Littlejohn v. Leon County School Board, Florida parents sued after discovering their school district developed a secret "gender support" plan for their 13-year-old daughter – who had learning difficulties and developmental delays – without notifying them or obtaining consent.¹¹

In Foote v. Ludlow School Committee, Massachusetts parents explicitly instructed their daughter’s middle school not to interfere with the mental healthcare plan they had established for their gender-confused daughter.

The school ignored them and secretly facilitated an in-school transition, allowing the 11-year-old to use boys’ bathrooms and holding private counseling sessions with her about gender identity.¹²

The Colorado case involved both the Lee and Jurich families, whose daughters attended after-school GSA meetings where they were allegedly told their parents might not be "trustworthy" to discuss gender identity with.¹³

All three cases were dismissed by lower courts on procedural grounds.

But with Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch signaling their interest, the Court may be positioning itself to take up one of these challenges – or a similar case that presents the issue more cleanly.

"The troubling—and tragic—allegations in this case underscore the ‘great and growing national importance’ of the question that these parent petitioners present," Alito concluded.¹⁴

The Trump administration enters the fight

The battle over school secrecy policies isn’t just playing out in courtrooms.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for federal education funds to be suspended for schools that keep parents in the dark about gender transitions.¹⁵

The Department of Education announced an investigation into California over its state law prohibiting school officials from disclosing a child’s "gender identity" to parents, alleging this conflicts with federal obligations under the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act.¹⁶

California became the first state to ban parental notification policies in July 2024, when Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom signed the so-called "SAFETY Act" into law.¹⁷

The law prohibits school districts from requiring educators to inform parents about pronoun or name changes without a student’s consent.

Proponents claim it protects LGBTQ+ students living in "unwelcoming households."

Critics argue it systematically excludes parents from critical decisions about their children’s psychological development and identity formation.

Representative Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) introduced the Prohibiting Parental Secrecy Policies in Schools Act, which would withhold federal funding from schools that fail to require parental permission before students can change names or pronouns at school.¹⁸

But despite the Trump administration’s executive action and congressional efforts, many school districts aren’t backing down.

Parents shared questionnaires that teachers gave students asking for preferred pronouns when the 2025-2026 school year started – even in districts where administrators claimed they would comply with federal requirements.¹⁹

The legal theories driving school secrecy

The philosophy underlying these policies deserves scrutiny.

School districts aren’t just claiming they can hide information from parents.

They’re arguing they must hide it – that federal law requires them to keep parents in the dark.

This legal theory comes straight from activist organizations like the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network.²⁰

They claim children have a federally guaranteed right to privacy from their parents in school, that the Fourteenth Amendment establishes children’s right to transition without parental consent or knowledge, and that Title IX protects transgender students from the "harassment" of being "outed" to their parents.²¹

None of this is supported by the actual text of these laws or Supreme Court precedent.

FERPA – the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act – protects student records from disclosure to third parties.

It was never intended to prevent schools from communicating with parents about their own children.

The Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause has been interpreted by the Supreme Court for over a century as protecting parents’ fundamental right to direct the upbringing and education of their children.

Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in education programs receiving federal funding.

It says nothing about requiring schools to facilitate gender transitions or hide information from parents.

But school districts keep citing these laws as justification for secrecy policies, and many parents believe them because they assume school officials know the law.

In Dover, Pennsylvania, a mother discovered school staff had been addressing her 12-year-old daughter with male pronouns for a year – and even sent the child to a hospital for evaluation without informing the parents.²²

When she confronted the school board, officials told her there was a law against informing her.

There isn’t.

What’s really at stake

Strip away the legal jargon and activist talking points, and here’s what these policies amount to: government employees facilitating significant psychological interventions in children’s lives while deliberately concealing this from parents.

Studies show social transitions aren’t neutral or reversible.

They lock gender-confused adolescents into the belief they were born in the wrong body and dramatically increase the likelihood of future medical interventions – puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, surgeries.²³

The Supreme Court itself recognized in Bellotti v. Baird that "during the formative years of childhood and adolescence, minors often lack the experience, perspective, and judgment to recognize and avoid choices that could be detrimental" to their wellbeing.²⁴

That’s why the law presumes parents possess "what a child lacks in maturity, experience, and capacity for judgment required for making life’s difficult decisions."²⁵

School districts are inverting this presumption.

They’re deciding that 11-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds have the maturity and judgment to make identity-shaping decisions without parental involvement – and that schools should actively help them hide these decisions from mom and dad.

This represents a fundamental reordering of the relationship between parents, children, and the state.

The America First Policy Institute, which worked on the Colorado case, put it bluntly: "Schools should never be allowed to introduce complex, identity-shaping ideas in secret."²⁶

Interim General Counsel Gina D’Andrea added that parents deserve "the right to know what their child is being taught" and promised to "continue holding them accountable."²⁷

The path forward

Alito’s statement signals that at least three Justices are paying attention to this issue and believe it merits Supreme Court review.

With multiple similar cases pending and more working through lower courts, the odds increase that the Court will eventually take one up.

The recent track record suggests how such a case might be decided.

In June 2025, the Court ruled 6-3 in United States v. Skrmetti, upholding Tennessee’s law banning doctors from prescribing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or performing surgeries on gender-confused minors.²⁸

That same month, the Court ruled in Mahmoud v. Taylor that parents have a constitutional right to excuse their children from LGBTQ-themed lessons based on religious objections.²⁹

Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion in Mahmoud, emphasizing that parents’ fundamental rights include directing their children’s moral and religious upbringing.

The conservative majority appears increasingly skeptical of government efforts to insert itself between parents and children on questions of identity, sexuality, and values.

But until the Court definitively rules on school secrecy policies, thousands of districts will continue operating under the assumption they can facilitate children’s gender transitions without parental knowledge or consent.

Lower courts will keep finding procedural reasons to avoid the constitutional question.

And parents will keep discovering – sometimes years later – that schools were making major decisions about their children’s psychological development behind their backs.

Alito’s warning to lower courts was clear: stop running from this question.

The only question now is whether they’ll listen – or whether the Supreme Court will have to force their hand.

¹ Melissa Quinn, "Supreme Court turns away parental rights dispute brought by Colorado families," CBS News, October 14, 2025.

² Ibid.

³ Amy Howe, "Supreme Court rejects hearing several cases, including on children’s gender identity," SCOTUSblog, October 14, 2025.

⁴ Supreme Court of the United States, "Jonathan Lee, et al. v. Poudre School District R-1," Statement of Justice Alito, October 14, 2025.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Sarah Parshall Perry, "Public School Gender Policies That Exclude Parents Are Unconstitutional," The Heritage Foundation, May 22, 2024.

⁷ Quinn, CBS News.

⁸ "Court: Schools Can Transition Students Without Parental Consent," Standing for Freedom Center, June 11, 2025.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ "Supreme Court asked to weigh in on schools secretly transitioning students," Washington Examiner, October 9, 2025.

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Ibid.

¹³ Quinn, CBS News.

¹⁴ Supreme Court of the United States, Statement of Justice Alito.

¹⁵ "Schools Are Still Secretly Pushing Kids To Socially Transition Under Trump. Will SCOTUS Finally End It?" The Daily Caller, September 22, 2025.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ "California bans school rules requiring parents get notified of child’s pronoun change," NBC News, July 16, 2024.

¹⁸ Nicole Russell, "Parents Are Fed Up With Public Schools Secretly Transitioning Children," The Heritage Foundation, 2024.

¹⁹ The Daily Caller, September 22, 2025.

²⁰ Hannah Schoenbaum, "Transgender Secrecy Policies at Public Schools," City Journal, July 19, 2023.

²¹ Ibid.

²² Ibid.

²³ Perry, The Heritage Foundation.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Alex Swoyer, "Alito concerned courts avoiding question of parental rights in schools," Washington Examiner, October 14, 2025.

²⁷ Ibid.

²⁸ "Supreme Court 2025 Rulings Boost Parental Rights," AMAC, July 2, 2025.

²⁹ Ibid.