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The former Donald Trump aide's legal group says Mesa Public Schools' inclusive policies violate parents' rights.
A legal group headed by former Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller is representing an Arizona school board member her fight against transgender-supportive policies.
America First Legal filed a lawsuit Monday against Mesa Public Schools on behalf of board member Rachel Walden, alleging that the district’s policies violate the state’s parental rights law. It also names the district’s superintendent, Andi Fourlis. It was filed in Maricopa County Superior Court.
“This case involves an astonishing situation that once would have been unthinkable: a school district policy to assist and encourage students who want to represent themselves as having a gender different from their biological sex, and which forbids the notification of parents,” the lawsuit says. “The policy directly violates multiple statutes, especially Arizona’s Parents’ Bill of Rights, which recognizes and protects the ‘fundamental right’ ‘of parents to direct the upbringing, education, health care and mental health of their children.’”
“The policy also violates many other statutes, such as the requirement that ‘parents will be notified in advance of ... any instruction ... or presentations regarding sexuality’ … and the requirement that parents provide consent before any “mental health screening in a nonclinical setting or mental health treatment on a minor,’” it continues.
“Even worse, in a brazen lack of respect for democratic principles, MPS maintains this policy of parental non-notification and facilitation of sex transition even though the elected MPS Governing Board, the only entity authorized by state law to adopt ‘policies and procedures to govern the schools,’ has never voted to adopt any such policy,” the suit says.
The district allows trans students to use the facilities designated for their gender identity and to use the names and pronouns that match that identity, The Arizona Republicreports. It also requires staff to ask students if they want their parents notified, and if they say no, the district can’t notify parents, the suit says. It says the trans-supportive policies have been in place at least since August 2015 and have been revised several times.
“Since Walden joined the board in January, she has been outspoken in her opposition to the district’s guidelines related to transgender students,” the Republic notes.
The district sought legal advice this year on whether these guidelines violate state law, and the Mesa-based law firm of Udall Shumway responded that they do not. Also, Fourlis sent a letter to parents and staffers this summer saying that parents are not kept in the dark about support plans for trans students and that those plans do not include medical transition, as some people have alleged.
The suit seeks to have the district’s trans support policies declared illegal and to prevent the enforcement of any policies “relating to matters of sexuality or to the gender or sexual identity of students” unless the board has approved them. It further seeks to require parental notification and consent “whenever a student attempts to discuss any matters of sexuality with school employees, including when students express confusion or concern about their gender or sexual identity or when they express a desire to transition to represent themselves as having a gender different from their biological sex.” This ignores the fact that if parents are not supportive, notification could put students in danger.
The district hasn’t responded to the Republic’s request for comment.
America First Legal was founded in 2021 and is based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to “oppose the radical left’s anti-jobs, anti-freedom, anti-faith, anti-borders, anti-police, and anti-American crusade,” its website states. Miller, who was a senior adviser to Trump, is its president. Gene Hamilton, who worked in the Department of Justice during Trump’s presidency, is vice president and general counsel.
Miller’s firm recently filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over Kellogg’s LGBTQ-supportive practices and has sued Target over its marketing of Pride merchandise. Before last year’s election, it spread the lie that President Joe Biden and other liberal politicians are “pushing” young people to take cross-sex hormones and are out to destroy women’s sports.
Pictured: Stephen Miller
