The Ninth Circuit has confirmed that parents’ rights still exist in California —despite Gavin Newsom’s effort to stamp them out.
Last week, the appellate court — still known as the most liberal in the land — blocked the enforcement of AB 1955, the 2024 law that prevents schools from informing parents when children tell schools that they want to change genders.
Newsom adopted the law to spite conservatives who had won seats on local school boards in the 2022 midterm elections, and who had begun to push back against “woke” indoctrination.
On the national level, President Joe Biden and then-Attorney General Merrick Garland had smeared parents as “domestic terrorists” if they stood up at school board meetings.
That only made parents more determined to take back control of their schools, even in deep-blue California.
In the community of Chino Hills, school board president Sonja Shaw spearheaded a new policy that required schools to keep parents informed.
California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond invaded the board meeting to protest, and Shaw had to have him removed. (Shaw is now one of the two finalists for his position in the general election in November.)
Newsom responded by signing AB 1955 into law.
Newsom then responded by signing AB 1955 into law. But he could not defend his opposition to parents’ rights. In fact, when asked why parents didn’t have the right to know about their own children, he tried to deflect the question, saying it wasn’t a major issue for voters anyway.
The vast majority of Californians support parents’ rights, but Newsom dared not defy the LGBTQ+ activists in his base.
Parents and teachers went to court, and the Supreme Court agreed with them earlier this year.
Separately, the City of Huntington Beach had sued the state over the policy — one of many policies on which the conservative town has clashed with the liberal overlords in Sacramento.
Originally, the Ninth Circuit found that the city lacked standing to sue. But in light of the Supreme Court ruling, the Ninth Circuit changed its mind, and ruled last week that Huntington Beach has standing and is likely to win the case. It therefore blocked Newsom’s law.
It is a relief to know that parents’ rights, and common sense, have prevailed. Parents have to sign permission slips for field trips to the museum; certainly they have a right to know if their children are being counseled to change their gender, through drugs or eventual surgery.
This is just the latest Newsom law struck down by the courts. It joins a long list of laws that Newsom has signed that turned out to be unconstitutional, including a ban on AI parodies.
Newsom has styled himself as a champion of democracy against Donald Trump. Voters should note that he has often been an enemy of the Constitution — from free speech to parents’ rights.
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