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A father in New Jersey is challenging a state-wide policy that allows schools to use students’ preferred pronouns or names without informing their parents of the change, arguing that the policy violates legal parental rights.
Christin Heaps filed a lawsuit against his daughter’s high school in 2024 after the school began “socially transitioning” her by using a male name and pronouns at her request. The New Jersey Monitor reported that the school, Delaware Valley Regional High School, did not tell Heaps about the change, noting that he learned of the situation when another parent referred to his daughter by her male name.
Though Heaps pulled his daughter out of the school and now homeschools her, and she no longer wishes to use a male name and pronouns, his lawsuit asks a federal appeals court to strike down the policy. Represented by Christian legal nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Heaps argues that the policy infringes on parents’ rights to make decisions in their children’s best interests.
“Defendants seek to honor major life choices of minor children related to their education, mental, and physical health without the parents’ fully informed consent, while also attempting to keep such choices secret from parents, as in this case, which violates the long-recognized constitutional principle that custodial parents ‘possess what a child lacks in maturity, experience, and capacity for judgment required for making life’s difficult decisions,’” the lawsuit states.
According to the New Jersey Monitor, the lawsuit asks the judges to declare the policy unconstitutional and prevent the state from using its Law Against Discrimination as a justification for the school guidance. Heaps is also attempting to place his daughter back in school, this time accompanied by an independent monitor, paid for by the school, to ensure his parental rights are respected.
The suit has been hotly contested from the beginning, with several school districts and state Deputy Attorney General Matthew Lynch challenging Heaps’ arguments and asking courts to dismiss the case.
The New Jersey Monitor reported that a district judge has twice rejected the suit and Heaps’ requests for an injunction against the policy, stating in November that she found no “proactive intrusion into private family matters.”
The case is currently before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. In a June 2025 brief, ADF stated that “the government must not second-guess a parental decision simply because an adolescent dislikes it.”
