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A New Jersey school district is being sued over a policy allowing students to change their name and gender identity at school without notifying their parents.
Under the School District of the Chathams’ policy, students are able to change their name in official school records, use the bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity, and the school guidance counselor decides “whether, and to what extent” parents are involved in the decision.
The school’s policy flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Mirabelli v. Bonta in March, which granted an injunction against California over state policies that keep students’ gender identities confidential from parents while the issue works its way through the lower courts, according to Christopher Ferrara, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, who filed the lawsuit.
“Well, the court has made clear in the Mirabelli case, and the Third Circuit has a decision along the same lines, that parents have standing to challenge a policy like this, which would hide a gender transition from the parents, whether or not the child is actually transitioning,” Ferrara told Digital. “And the Supreme Court indicated that the reason parents have standing is that the parents are the objects of this policy.”
People supporting the right to opt their children out of classes containing LGBTQ-related content demonstrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court as the court hears oral arguments in the Mahmoud v. Taylor case in Washington, D.C., on April 22, 2025. Parents challenged a Maryland public school district after it ended opt-outs for classroom discussions involving LGBTQ-related books. (Oliver Contreras/AFP via Getty Images)
“The policy provides that this information will be hidden from them, so they have the right to object to it, whether or not their particular child or children is at that moment being transitioned. And there’s always a risk, of course, that the child under peer pressure, or the influence of teachers, or social media will go along with this ridiculous trend and decide that his gender is not the biological one that parents believe is God-given and immutable, but some other gender.”
Ferrara noted that the policy could have major consequences for students who aren’t seeking to transition their gender because they could be forced to share locker rooms and bathrooms with members of the opposite sex.
Moms for Liberty CEO and founder Tina Descovich, whose organization is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, also alleged that students who refuse to use other students’ preferred pronouns could face disciplinary action under the school’s code of conduct.
“They have a policy in the school district that will actually punish children that don’t use the demanded new gender identity pronoun and name of another student,” Descovich told Digital. “They can do that just one time on accident and they can be punished up to suspension just for using the wrong pronoun or the wrong name of someone that is identifying as something other than they actually are.”
Digital reached out to School District of the Chathams for comment.
Along with Moms for America, two anonymous parents of elementary school-aged daughters are plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was filed Aug. 24. The plaintiffs accuse the school of violating the parents’ and students’ First Amendment rights to free speech and religious liberty, as well as the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. The school district is also accused of violating parental rights that were affirmed in the Supreme Court’s ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which determined that parents can opt their children out of LGBT-centered lessons.
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Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich speaks during the 2024 Joyful Warriors National Summit on Aug. 30, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“The Supreme Court has ruled twice on these issues,” Descovich said. “We know that parents have to have a right to opt out of things that violate their religious beliefs.”
The lawsuit follows a June 15, 2026, school board meeting in which Ann Ciccarelli, president of the Chatham School District Board of Education, said the district was not legally bound by the Mirabelli decision and instead was required to follow the New Jersey Department of Education’s 2018 guidance on transgender students.
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Parents from the Montgomery County Public Schools district speak out about parental rights issues impacting their school district outside the U.S. Supreme Court on April 22, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
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But New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin acknowledged that Policy 5756 is not mandatory, according to NJ Spotlight News.
“The guidance violates both Maribel and it violates Mahmood and so you know there’s a lot of crossover and confusion here but what it comes down to is the school board the school has a duty and responsibility to protect constitutional rights of the citizens in its community of its employees of its students of its families and it is not doing that,” Descovich said.
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Ferrara told Digital that since parents began speaking out against the policy, they have been subjected to threats and intimidation. He said that one family has had a police security outside their homes.
“This is what happens when you oppose these policies,” Ferrara told Digital. “You basically are going to be subjected to a vicious public backlash by ideologues who are totally intolerant of basically the normal point of view on this issue.”
