California school districts may continue to enforce prohibitions on teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) and requirements that they notify parents about their children’s gender confusion while the case works its way through the courts, thanks to a judge’s ruling.
Last August, left-wing law firm Public Counsel filed a lawsuit against the Temecula Valley Unified School District (TVUSD) over its ban on CRT, the doctrine, rooted in Marxism, that race is a “socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of color” through American institutions. The suit claimed that the policy against far-left ideology violated California children’s “right to education and to receive information,” as well as state learning standards that mandate discussion of racism and “inequality.”
Also last summer, the nearby Chino Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) Board of Education adopted rules requiring parents to be notified of a student’s request to identify with “a gender other than the student’s biological sex,” including the desire to use different pronouns or a different name, or to use locker rooms and/or restrooms that “do not align with the student’s biological sex.” The policy sparked death threats from irate LGBT activists, as well as pushback from state officials.
Now, the Los Angeles Times reports that Riverside County Superior Court Judge Eric Keen denied a request for a preliminary injunction against enforcing the CRT policy, rejecting arguments that it would create confusion about what can and cannot be discussed in classrooms. “It seems clear to the court that a person of ordinary intelligence would have a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited as what is prohibited is set out specifically in the resolution,” he said.
Keen also took the opportunity to affirm the parental notification policy, explaining that it applies equally to all students, is “gender neutral,” and “does not expressly single out transgender or gender-nonconforming students, as it applies to any student’s request to change their school official or unofficial records.” Temecula, Chino Valley, and Murrieta Valley have all adopted similar policies.
The indoctrination of children with left-wing ideology on sexuality and other left-wing agenda items has long been a major concern in American public schools, from libraries to athletic and restroom policy to drag events to classroom materials to even “transitioning” troubled children without parental input. The influential American Library Association, currently helmed by a self-described “Marxist lesbian,” opposes denying children access to age-inappropriate materials.
Studies find that more than 80% of children suffering gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence, and that even full “reassignment” surgery often fails to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide — and may even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.
The danger of keeping parents in the dark about such situations is grimly illustrated in the story of Yaeli Martinez, a 19-year-old to whom “gender transitioning” was touted as a possible cure for her depression in high school, supported by a high school counselor who withheld what she was going through from her mother. The troubled girl killed herself after trying to live as a man for three years.
In recent years, these issues have helped fuel a parent backlash that has been credited with Republican gains in states like Florida and Virginia, whose current respective governors have taken leading roles in fighting back.