Judge: Rock Springs school didn’t violate parental rights in transgender pronoun case

Sweetwater County educators did not keep information from the parents of a Rock Springs high school student who asked to be called by a preferred name and pronouns, a federal judge ruled Monday.

U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl reached that conclusion en route to dismissing a lawsuit brought by the child’s parents, who had alleged the district violated their rights by deliberately concealing information about their child’s name and pronoun choices. The student’s mother, a public school teacher in Sweetwater County, further alleged that her First Amendment religious rights were violated by district policies that direct staff about how to handle students’ preferred names and pronouns.

Skavdahl rebuffed both allegations, agreeing with Sweetwater County School District 1 lawyers that the case should be decided in the educators’ favor before it reached a jury.

“The undisputed facts establish that Defendants did not withhold or knowingly misrepresent any information regarding the Student from or to Plaintiff, and thus did not interfere with this right,” Skavdahl wrote. “Neither did Defendants’ conduct burden Plaintiff’s First Amendment right to freely exercise her religious beliefs as a parent or unconstitutionally interfere with her right to freely exercise her religious beliefs as a teacher.”

The student’s parents, Ashley and Sean Willey, sued Sweetwater County School District 1 leaders and educators in April 2023. They asked the court to bar the district from using any names or pronouns other than the ones their teenager was given at birth without prior written consent. 

Ashley Willey also asked the court to block the district from forcing her, as a teacher, to use her students’ preferred pronouns or names. Willey did not use students’ preferred pronouns and names as a teacher, and she testified she was never disciplined or retaliated against for her decision, according to Skavdahl’s ruling.

The Willey family filed the lawsuit amid rising concerns, often expressed by conservative-leaning parents, that schools were influencing student decisions about gender identity. That spurred efforts to ban or limit access to certain LGBTQ+ books at school and public libraries in Wyoming. State lawmakers also brought measures designed to prevent school districts and public employees from being required to use preferred pronouns and names, while requiring schools to provide parents with more information about their children. A school district pronoun bill died in the state Senate while the state-employee focused legislation became law without Gov. Mark Gordon’s signature.

Earlier this year, Wyoming’s schools superintendent, Megan Degenfelder, also pushed for a requirement that schools receive parental consent before using a child’s preferred name or pronouns.

Parental rights, district obligations

In the Willeys’ lawsuit, the parents alleged their child asked teachers and staff at Black Butte High School in Rock Springs to be called by a male name and pronouns starting in the 2021-22 school year. They accused the district of keeping that development from them by continuing to use the child’s gender assigned at birth in their presence, while using the teen’s preferred name and pronouns in school. 

During depositions, three school staff members testified they used the student’s preferred name and pronouns during the 2021-22 school year. Another teacher did so in an email exchange during the 2022-23 school year.

The Willeys asserted that the district should have proactively informed them about their child’s change in name and pronouns because parents have a right to make decisions about their children’s well-being, including their physical and mental health. 

But Skavdahl noted that such a stance would be impractical, as there are a “laundry list of circumstances that could affect a child’s ‘well-being’ even in the slightest that would require constant, detailed information sharing from the school, with constitutional consequences.”

The judge agreed that parents have a right to know about their child’s gender identity choices if parents seek that information from schools. But he drew a distinction between a district knowingly keeping that information from a parent and a district that provides such information only when asked.

“The Court does not think the information can properly be deemed ‘withheld’ to infringe on parental rights unless a parent inquired into or sought the information and it was intentionally concealed or they were lied to,” Skavdahl wrote. “Otherwise, an infinite amount of information would be deemed ‘withheld’ by schools on a daily basis in violation of parental rights.”

“The District and its staff members merely respected the Student’s voluntary choice to be referred to by preferred name and pronouns,” the judge wrote later in the opinion. “Neither the District nor its staff members required the Student go by preferred name or pronouns nor did they ‘discourage students from discussing their gender identities with their parents.’”

Moreover, the school district shared information with the parents about their child’s preferred name and pronouns when that information was sought, the judge noted.

Skavdahl also rejected the Willeys’ arguments that educators facilitated the student’s gender transition socially, and thus, invalidated the parents’ right to make medical decisions for their teen.

“Plaintiff offers no evidence that the school provided any type of ‘medical transition’ or even ‘facilitated’ the Student’s ‘social transitioning,’” Skavdahl wrote. “Defendants were not involved in changing the Student’s clothing or hairstyle. Plaintiff did not set forth any facts that staff members even encouraged or suggested the Student engage in such behaviors, but simply that staff members passively respected the Student’s request to be referred to by preferred name and pronouns.”

Freedom of religion

Skavdahl also denied Ashley Willey’s claims that the district violated her freedom of religion, both as a parent and as a teacher. She had argued the district’s failure to inform her about her child’s gender identity changes interfered with her religious beliefs because it kept her from information she needed to counsel her child.

But that reasoning would create an obligation on the part of the district to foster the exercise of Willey’s religious beliefs, the judge wrote.

“Plaintiff’s allegations, more plainly, are that the District staff members’ use, at the Student’s request, of preferred name and pronouns were counter to Plaintiff’s own religious beliefs,” he wrote. “However, a person’s constitutional right to freely exercise their own religious beliefs does not require that the state also exercise those same religious beliefs … To conclude that the District’s failure to act in accordance with Plaintiff’s religious beliefs is a constitutional violation would turn the First Amendment on its head.”

As to Willey’s assertions that being required to follow the district’s policies concerning preferred pronouns and names violated her religious rights, Skavdahl was unswayed. Those policies were “neutral laws of general applicability,” they don’t raise concerns about the free exercise of religion and must only be “rationally related to a legitimate government interest” to be considered constitutional. That interest, Skavdahl wrote, involved promoting an educational environment that’s both respectful and without discrimination.