Commentary

“Each teacher shall endeavor to impress upon the minds of the pupils the principles of morality, truth, justice, patriotism, and a true comprehension of the rights, duties, and dignity of American citizenship, and the meaning of equality and human dignity, including the promotion of harmonious relations ... to teach them to avoid idleness, profanity, and falsehood, and to instruct them in manners and morals and the principles of a free government,” according to California Education Code 233.5.

California’s Education Codes were adopted in 1943. Over the past half-century, they have varied in content and meaning as the laws of the United States, cultural attitudes, and our Western civilization’s ethos have changed. As historical events direct and influence our future, however, each generation examines quintessential questions that define our common purpose as Americans and how we should live according to the laws created by our constitutional republic.

In March, Sacramento politicians originally introduced a sensible legislative bill to help students with mental health-related issues. This bill, in its original language, authorized the California Department of Education to support school districts to increase mental health screenings and support school districts to boost mental health programs for children in public K–12 schools.

On May 22, the bill’s language was converted to a new bill with an entirely different purpose and consequences. The new legislation was entitled the Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth (SAFETY) Act and was signed into law on July 15.

This new law, AB 1955, will have a widespread impact on families, children, and public education. It overrides parental notification policies enacted by local school boards that require school employees to inform parents about the well-being and emotional and mental health of their students.

In practice, this law prohibits all public schools from disclosing to a student’s parents critical gender and mental health-related information. It forbids school officials in public and charter schools from disclosing information to a student’s mother and father that is related to a child’s perception of their gender identity, gender expression, or related mental health issues.

The original intent of parental notification policies was to strengthen family interpersonal dynamics and support the rights of parents. With an observed increase in child and adolescent mental illnesses, including gender dysphoria and its new subcategory Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, our society is in a mental health watershed moment, and parents need support and help. Not surprisingly, many researchers have connected these epidemiological observations to the impact of social media and social contagion. This acute mental health crisis adversely affects family dynamics and strains interpersonal relationships in the family unit.

Unfortunately, with the new law, parental notification policies are now illegal, with school staff, teachers, administrators, and principals being required to exclude from parents knowledge of their child’s serious mental health condition.

Undermining parents even more, a narrative has emerged that children with gender dysphoria are under attack by their parents and school boards. Allowing parents to be involved in their child’s gender identification, gender incongruence, and mental health concerns has been said to put these students’ lives at risk.

Californians and parents on both sides of the political spectrum disagree with this assessment. They argue that AB 1955 undermines and removes the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children and is in violation of the U.S. Constitution and federal laws.

In 2000, in the Troxel v. Granville case, one of many cases involving the U.S. Supreme Court that guarantees parental rights, the court pronounced that “the custodial parent has a constitutional right to determine, without undue interference by the state, how best to raise, nurture, and educate the child.”

“The parental right stems from the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the court stated.

In 1979, the Supreme Court decision in Parham v. J.R., concluded that “jurisprudence historically has reflected Western civilization concepts of the family as a unit with broad parental authority over minor children.” Numerous other Supreme Court opinions consistently support the inalienable rights of parents and the parental rights doctrine.

In a more recent 2023 legal case (Mirabelli v. Olson) filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California by two public school teachers, the court opined against a school district’s policy that restricted school staff and teachers from contacting parents about information believed to be critical to the welfare of students. The court issued a preliminary injunction and stated that “the United States Supreme Court has historically and repeatedly declared that parents have a right, grounded in the Constitution, to direct the education, health, and upbringing, and to maintain the well-being of their children.”

Thus, AB 1955 is in violation of California’s own Education Code 233.5, and historical legal precedent. Western culture and civilizations since the earliest societies have recognized that parents and not government are the final arbitrators and ultimate authorities of their children’s lives. Children require their parents’ presence in their interpersonal struggles and family challenges.

On July 16, one day after this controversial bill became law, litigation was filed, and a battle line was drawn in the Golden State over the question of who has the ultimate authority over children: parents or government agents? The courts will decide the legal status, but I pray that the American people will support and defend time-proven truths that make families strong and define our family values.