The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has given new life to a lawsuit against Chico Unified School District that was filed in response to its policy that shaped the handling of a gender identity case.
The higher court in April said that U.S. Eastern District Court Judge John Mendez erred in dismissing a lawsuit filed by Chico parent Aurora Regino. Mendez said Regino didn’t have the legal foundation to pursue a claim opposing the district’s anti-discrimination and student privacy policy.
That policy prohibits the school from notifying parents about a student’s gender identity concerns or decisions without the student’s consent.
Regino has said she was not informed by the school of her child’s use of a new name and pronouns in 2022, and in her lawsuit asserts her parental rights over the state’s guidance related to children’s rights to non-disclosure.
Regino had discovered that her daughter had met with a school counselor at Sierra View Elementary, where the child indicated she would like to go by new pronouns. Regino’s daughter eventually told her grandmother, with the counselor’s encouragement, who told Regino.
Regino is represented by attorneys at the conservative The Center for American Liberty who have taken on similar cases around the country.
It took nearly a year for the Ninth Circuit panel to release a decision after hearing arguments in Pasadena last May. In their unanimous opinion filed in April, judges Kim McLane Wardlaw, Morgan Christen, and Mark J. Bennett overruled Mendez.
“The right of parents to make important medical decisions for their children is not unbounded,” Judge Christen wrote for the majority. However, she added, “The Supreme Court has long recognized ‘the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.’”
The center’s litigation director, Josh Dixon, in an interview with KRCR TV, said his team is “elated” about the ruling.
“There’s still much work to be done, it’s not an unqualified victory, the court basically just undid the dismissal and said to the district court ‘reconsider what you’ve done,’ but that’s work that we’re looking forward to doing,” Dixon said.
Chico Unified School District’s communications manager Erica Smith commented in an email to ChicoSol.
“We believe this case should not be directed at CUSD or any individual school district but instead at the governing entities responsible for developing the laws and guidance,” Smith wrote.
Regino’s briefing argued that schools have an affirmative obligation to notify parents about their children’s preferred gender identity. However, at oral arguments, she then narrowed her position by conceding that her rights do not give her the ability to invade her child’s relationship with a counselor or therapist, and that a teacher’s knowledge of a child’s transgender status does not trigger an obligation to notify the child’s parents.
At oral argument her attorney argued that her 14th Amendment rights were compromised by the “creation of an environment in which a student’s transgender identity is affirmed — e.g., where a counselor informs other faculty members to address a student using a new name or pronouns,” the appellate court notes in its ruling.
The case thus returns to Judge Mendez, who should review these “revamped arguments,” the panel said.
The Ninth Circuit judges instructed Mendez to adopt a narrow definition of the “interest at stake” and “apply existing precedent,” which recognizes a parental right to make decisions about children’s “care, custody and control.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1955 last year, banning school districts from passing policies requiring staff to out students to their parents. “I don’t think teachers should be gender police,” Newsom said in a press conference.
Chico Unified board member Teisha Hase said she found the ruling from the Ninth Circuit concerning, particularly given Trump Administration threats to cut funding on the basis of state policy protecting student rights.
Editor: This story was corrected May 16 to state that Regino is represented by Center for American Liberty attorneys. ChicoSol regrets the initial error made in stating the name of the organization.
Natalie Hanson is a contributing editor to ChicoSol. Editor Leslie Layton contributed reporting to this story.