A father in New Jersey is suing a school district for implementing a policy that allows children who believe they are “transgender” to change their names and gender at school without parental consent.
The parent, Frederick Short, filed a lawsuit in federal court against Cherry Hill Public Schools this month. In the lawsuit, he argued that the policy violates parents’ Fourteenth Amendment rights. He has three children in the school district.
“I don’t agree with the policy,” Short said in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer. “To me, it’s so out of whack that a parent doesn’t have the right to know what’s going on in their child’s life. I just want to know.”
New Jersey dad sues school district over transgender policy that allows children to change names and gender without parental consent https://t.co/RKGZ1FbECE pic.twitter.com/xaDQU5hlOg
— New York Post (@nypost) October 25, 2023
According to the policy, transgender students “shall be addressed at school by the name and pronoun chosen by the student, regardless of whether a legal name change or change in official school records has occurred.”
Earlier this year, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D) administration sued three school districts in the state over policies that require staff to inform parents if their children show signs of changing their “gender identity.”
As Townhall covered, the state alleged that the Manalapan-Englishtown, Marlboro and Middletown school districts violated the state’s law against discrimination by rolling out policies that protect parents’ rights.
Marc Zitomer, an attorney for Marlboro’s school board, told Politico in a statement that “we vehemently disagree with Attorney General’s argument that it is somehow discriminatory or improper to notify a parent that their minor child is changing their gender identity or expression.”
“It is our position that keeping parents in the dark about important issues involving their children is counterintuitive and contrary to well established U.S. Supreme Court case law that says that parents have a constitutional right to direct and control the upbringing of their children,” Zitomer added.