A year after school boards in California emerged as unlikely culture war battlegrounds, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed the nation’s first law prohibiting policies that force educators to tell parents if their children ask to use a different name or pronouns.
The new law was applauded by L.G.B.T.Q. organizations who said it would protect the privacy and safety of transgender students, especially those who might fear their parents would not support their identity. But conservatives vowed to challenge the law in court, and Elon Musk, the Tesla chief executive, called it the “final straw” in a post on X, vowing to move the headquarters of X and Space X to Texas as a result of the bill signing.
Over the past year, more than a dozen school boards in California — largely led by conservatives who were elected in the aftermath of pandemic disruptions — enacted policies that would have required school employees to notify parents if students asked to use a name or pronouns other than the ones listed on their school records.
Similar policies have been enacted in conservative states, such as Tennessee and North Carolina, as part of a sweeping “parental rights” movement backed by national conservative organizations. But liberal leaders in California saw the school board polices as an unwelcome incursion that would forcibly out transgender and nonbinary students.
Mr. Newsom and Rob Bonta, the state attorney general, had fought conservative-led school districts in court before the overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature sent its bill to the governor last month.
The new law prohibits local school boards from forcing educators to tell parents if their child asks to use a different name or different pronouns. Parents would retain the right to access their child’s school records, and minors are still required to get permission from their parents or guardians before legally changing their name or gender.
“This law helps keep children safe while protecting the critical role of parents,” a spokesman for the governor, Brandon Richards, said in a statement. “It protects the child-parent relationship by preventing politicians and school staff from inappropriately intervening in family matters and attempting to control if, when and how families have deeply personal conversations.”
In fast-growing suburbs that were once more rural Republican outposts, such as Chino and Temecula in Southern California, outspoken conservatives have promised to rebuild trust between parents and educators by allowing parents to control much of their children’s education.
Sonja Shaw, who was elected in 2022 to lead the Chino Valley Unified School District, was among the first to take up what she has called a parental notification policy, which the state swiftly sued to block in a case that is ongoing.
On Tuesday, she condemned the new law and accused Mr. Newsom of being part of a “political cartel” intent on cutting parents out of the education of their children. She and her allies promised to fight the new law in court.
“It is morally corrupt and was enacted to prevent parents from exercising their rights,” she said. “This battle is far from over, and we will not rest until justice is served and parental rights are fully restored.”
Many opponents of the parental notification policies, including Mr. Bonta, described them as “forced outing” approaches that would harm transgender students whose parents reject their identities.
Some parents have organized to counter the so-called parental rights movement and push school boards to refocus on attracting high-quality teachers and funding extracurricular programs.
Kristi Hirst, a Chino Valley parent who helped start the nonprofit Our Schools USA, said that she has been encouraged in recent months by the ouster of several conservative school board members — most notably, the outspoken president of the Temecula Valley Unified School District, who at one point described Harvey Milk, the gay rights icon, as a “pedophile.”
She said on Tuesday that Mr. Newsom’s decision to sign the new legislation was “a strong showing of support.” (It was not a certainty that Mr. Newsom would sign the bill, given that he has in recent years rejected other bills supported by progressives.)
“It’s an excellent bill that will keep students safer in the state of California,” Ms. Hirst said of the new law.
She added that the law would ideally serve as protection if Republicans were to win control of the federal government and push for conservative educational priorities.
But legal experts say that court battles over parental notification policies in particular are far from over.
The law firm representing the Chino Valley Unified School District has argued that parents have a constitutional right to control their children’s upbringing, which includes their education. But legal scholars have said that children also have a constitutional right to privacy.
Conservatives in California have said they hope that the Chino Valley case or another one like it will ultimately end up before the Supreme Court.
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