A California school district that supported a students’ gender transition and kept it a secret from their mother has paid $100,000 in a settlement, according to NBC News.
The Spreckels Union School District paid the settlement one year after the mother, Jessica Konen, filed the lawsuit. Reportedly, the district and three of its employees “secretly convinced” her child that they were “bisexual” and “transgender” and encouraged them to keep it a secret from Konen.
NBC noted that a federal judge approved the settlement last month and ordered the case be dismissed with prejudice. The settlement does not constitute an admission of wrongdoing (via NBC):
The lawsuit was originally filed in Monterey County Superior Court in June 2022, before it was moved to U.S. District Court for Northern California three months later. It names as defendants the school district, along with the principal and two teachers at Buena Vista Middle School in Salinas, where the child attended from the fall of 2018 until the spring of 2021. The complaint demanded a jury trial, attorneys’ fees, more than $25,000 in damages and a declaration that the defendants violated the plaintiff’s rights.
Konen’s lawyer, Harmeet Dhillon, the founder of the Center for American Liberty, called it a “triumph.”
"Konen’s triumph strongly underscores the principle that parents, not schools, have a natural right to shape their child’s upbringing,” Dhillon said.
"This settlement sends a loud message to all school districts: attempting to secretly transition a child without parental notification or consent will lead to substantial repercussions," she added.
A countless number of California school districts have implemented policies over the years that do not protect parental rights. Townhall previously reported how California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against a school district that implemented a policy requiring staffers to inform parents of their children’s gender identity.
The Chino Valley Unified School District in San Bernardino County adopted a new policy that protects parental rights by requiring them be notified if their child begins going by a chosen name, preferred pronouns, or wants to use restrooms that align with their “gender identity” instead of their biological sex, which Townhall covered. This decision sparked other school districts, such as the nearby Murrieta Valley Unified School District and Orange Unified, to do the same.
In a statement to The New York Times, California’s Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta said that the Chino Valley policy “wrongfully endangers the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of nonconforming students who lack an accepting environment in the classroom and at home.” He added that the lawsuit serves as a “message” that “we will never stop fighting for the civil rights of LGBTQ+ students.”
However, several polls have shown that parents support policies that keep them in the loop about their child’s gender identity.