What a Wisconsin School District Wanted to Hide from Parents

As public schools shut down due to the COVID-19 outbreak, parents across the country find themselves homeschooling their children. For many, this is an eye-opening experience revealing exactly what their children are being taught at school.

Parents in one school district had this epiphany well before the shutdown. And it wasn’t positive.

When parents in Madison, Wisconsin learned that their children were being taught experimental theories about gender identity, they were understandably upset. Under a new school district policy, children as young as kindergarten were being exposed to the idea that gender “is a spectrum” and that you can choose your own gender based on how you feel.

Worse, part of the policies required teachers to assist and encourage children of any age in the adoption of transgender identities without parental notice or consent, and required teachers to actively deceive parents about their child’s struggle with gender identity disorder!

Something had to be done to protect these children and protect parental rights. That’s why 14 parents filed a lawsuit against the school district. Here’s what you need to know about this case.

Who: 14 parents of children in the Madison Metropolitan School District

A policy intended to “disrupt the gender binary” sounds like a political agenda you would see from a radical, left-wing activist group, not an idea that should be taught to young children in public schools. But in 2018, Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) adopted such a policy for all of its schools.

MMSD’s new policy defines gender as “a person’s internal sense of self as male, female, both or neither” and includes lesson plans and books that affirm transgender ideology, such as the highly controversial I Am Jazz book for children in kindergarten.

Right after the policy changes in 2018, an elementary school played a video about a teacher’s gender transition for the whole school (kindergarten through fifth grade) without parental permission.

But that’s not even the worst of it. Part of this school district policy also requires teachers and administrators to actively deceive parents about their own children. According to the policy, if a child professes a different gender identity and is called by a different name at school than at home, school employees must revert to using the child’s birth name around the child’s parents to keep them in the dark.

This isn’t just a school policy. This is activism at the expense of young children who will be taught the largely experimental idea of gender identity in their formative years.

Parents knew they had to do something to protect their children and their rights.

What: Doe v. Madison Metropolitan School District

Parents are the first teachers of their children and should be the first to know about issues their child is having at school—especially when it comes to the possibly life-altering topic of gender dysphoria.

That’s why 14 individual parents from eight families filed a lawsuit challenging MMSD’s policy that requires teachers to hide information from parents and lie to them. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys along with the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) asked a state court to halt MMSD’s policy.

“Whether a child with gender dysphoria should socially transition to a different gender identity is a highly controversial and consequential decision,” reads the complaint, “and is therefore the type of decision that falls squarely within parental decision-making authority.”

Also, Dr. Stephen B. Levine, a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, submitted an expert declaration in this case. “For a child to live radically different identities at home and at school, and to conceal what he or she perceives to be his or her true identity from parents, is psychologically unhealthy in itself,” writes Dr. Levine.

Experts and parents agree: this MMSD policy could harm children.

When: February 2020—present

WILL and ADF attorneys filed a lawsuit on behalf of parents on February 18 and asked for a temporary halt to MMSD’s policy on February 19.

Where: Madison, Wisconsin

MMSD is the largest school district in the state of Wisconsin with over 27,000 students and 52 schools.

Why: To protect children and parental rights

Parents have the best interests of their children in mind. But policies like MMSD’s pit children against their parents when it comes to important questions about sex and gender identity.

Several studies have shown that of the children who experience discomfort with their gender but do not socially transition (begin to dress as the opposite sex and use a new name), 80 to 98 percent eventually desist or become comfortable with their biological sex. Yet, school officials from the MMSD want to encourage children to socially transition, putting them on a path toward puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.

Elsewhere, some parents have already experienced situations like this. A man name Jay Keck found out school officials hid his daughter’s struggle with gender identity disorder from him. And others, such as 20 year-old woman Sydney Write, have spoken up about how they regret taking cross-sex hormones.

Children who struggle with gender dysphoria need their parents' support.

The Bottom Line

This school district policy harms children and violates parental rights, requiring teachers and school officials to be dishonest with parents about what their children are experiencing.

But it is parents who know what is best for their children, not school employees and administrators. And these parents will not allow their children to be used as pawns to further an ideological agenda.

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SCOTUS tackles clash of Catholic schools, ex-teachers

The Supreme Court on Monday seemed divided over how broadly religious institutions including schools, hospitals and social service centers should be shielded from job discrimination lawsuits by employees.

The court heard arguments by telephone, with the audio available live, for a second week because of the coronavirus pandemic. The court has two days left of scheduled telephone arguments. Tuesday's arguments are high-profile fights over President Donald Trump’s financial records.

On Monday, the high court heard a case stemming from a unanimous 2012 Supreme Court decision in which the justices said the Constitution prevents ministers from suing their churches for employment discrimination. But the court didn't rigidly define who counts as a minister.

Lawyer Eric Rassbach, representing two Catholic schools sued by former fifth grade teachers who taught religion among other subjects, told the justices that the women count as ministers exempt from suing.

“If separation of church and state means anything at all, it must mean that government cannot interfere with the church's decisions about who is authorized to teach its religion,” Rassbach told the justices.

But the court struggled Monday with who should count as a minister, with the court's four more liberal members expressing concern about broadening the current exception.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a member of the court’s liberal wing, told Rassbach that he was seeking an exception that was “broader than is necessary to protect the church.”

Justice Elena Kagan, meanwhile, asked whether a series of people working for religious institutions would count as a minister, including: a math teacher who begins class with a prayer, a nurse who prays with patients, a church organist and a cook who is not Jewish but prepares kosher meals. No, yes, yes and no, Rassbach answered.

“What's the connection, what are we supposed to draw from this?” Kagan asked, expressing concern about how the court should draw the line between who counts as a minister and who does not.

The court's conservatives, including Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh seemed more comfortable giving broad latitude to religious institutions in defining who is a minister.

Thomas, one of several justices who went to Catholic schools growing up, suggested courts should stay out of the issue, asking: “How exactly would ... a secular court go about, determining whether an employee’s duties and functions are religious or whether they’re important?”

Five of the justices are Catholic, three are Jewish and Gorsuch attended Catholic schools but now attends a Protestant church.

The case before the justices Monday involves two schools in Southern California. Kristen Biel taught at St. James Catholic School in Torrance and Agnes Morrissey-Berru at Our Lady of Guadalupe in nearby Hermosa Beach. Morrissey-Berru's teaching contract wasn't renewed in 2015, when she was in her 60s, after she'd taught more than 15 years at the school. And Biel's contract wasn't renewed after she disclosed she had breast cancer and would need time off.

Both sued their former employers, with Morrissey-Berru alleging age discrimination and Biel alleging disability discrimination. A lower court said both lawsuits could go forward, but the schools appealed and have the support of the Trump administration.

Biel died last year at age 54 after a five-year battle with breast cancer. Her husband has represented her side in her place.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has been treated for cancer four times, suggested she'd side with Morrissey-Berru and Biel.

“What I find very disturbing in all this,” Ginsburg said at one point, is “that the person can be fired or refused to be hired for a reason that has absolutely nothing to do with religion, like needing to take care of chemotherapy.”

The court also heard arguments by phone Monday in an appeal by a Native American man who claims state courts have no authority to try him for a crime committed on reservation land that belongs to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

The justices considered a case involving the same question a year ago, but Gorsuch didn't participate because he took part in the case when he served on the appeals court in Denver before becoming a justice in 2017. With only eight justices, the court was apparently evenly divided and so the justices took up a different case so the full group of nine could rule. On Monday, Gorsuch appeared to be a pivotal vote for the view that a large chunk of eastern Oklahoma remains an American Indian reservation.

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Philosophy student, 20, claims he faces expulsion from Australian university for 'exposing its ties to the Chinese Communist Party'

A fourth-year philosophy student at the University of Queensland is facing the threat of expulsion this week after speaking out against the Chinese Communist Party.

Drew Pavlou is an elected member of the university's senate and is now facing 11 accusations of 'prejudicing the reputation' of the institution.

The 20-year-old led a series of campus demonstrations last year, in support of Hong-Kong's pro-democracy movement.

He also posted messages to social media criticising China's authoritarian regime and denounced the university's close financial ties with the Communist Party.

However the University of Queensland claim the breaches are not for criticising China but for positioning the statement's as if they were on behalf of the university.

Mr Pavlou believes he is being unfairly targeted.

'I am being threatened with this unprecedented move because of UQ's particularly close relationship with the Chinese party-state; UQ enjoys perhaps the closest relationship of any university with the Chinese government in the Anglosphere,' he wrote in an article for Foreign Policy.

'In addition to funding and controlling a Confucius Institute on campus, the Chinese government funds at least four accredited UQ courses that present a party-approved version of Chinese history to students, glossing over human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, and mainland China.

'In addition to these state-backed courses, the Chinese consul general in Brisbane, Xu Jie, serves as an honorary professor at the university.'

Mr Pavlou recently took Mr Xu to court after being attacked at a rally by Chinese nationalists.

'In July 2019, I led a peaceful campus sit-in calling for UQ to completely cut ties with the Chinese state until Tibetans were freed, Uighur detention camps were closed, and Hong Kongers were afforded greater democracy,' he said.

'Masked pro-CCP heavies violently attacked our rally, assaulting me and choke-slamming other pro-Hong Kong students to the ground.'

Following the ugly incident, Mr Pavlou was named in a Chinese state media article by Mr Xu and accused of being 'anti-China'.

As a result, Mr Pavlou claims he then received death threats, unsettling phone calls and letters.

The University of Queensland said in a statement, it rejects the 'unsubstantiated' claims and is not attempting to prevent students from expressing their personal political views or trying to limit their right to freedom of speech.

'The University is an active defender of freedom of speech - it has adopted the principles of the French Model Code into its policy framework,' the statement said.

'Everyday life at UQ demonstrates our ongoing commitment to its protection and promotion.'

The university says any decision at the disciplinary hearing will be made on the basis of fact and evidence and that the process provides a fair and confidential course of action.

The University of Queensland has approximately 10,000 Chinese students bringing in about $150 million to the university in student fees each year.

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