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CV NEWS FEED // Sixteen federal judges heard arguments March 19 about whether an Ohio school district’s policy mandating the use of LGBT pronouns violates the First Amendment and parents’ authority.
Olentangy Local School District, which is near Columbus, adopted a policy in 2023 that requires students to use classmates’ preferred pronouns — even off-campus and online. It also forbids any language regarding “transgender” identity that could be perceived as “offensive,” “dehumanizing,” or “unwanted,” according to the Manhattan Institute.
The organization Parents Defending Education (PDE) sued the district’s board in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in May of that year, the American Civil Liberties Union reports.
According to PDE, the policy not only violates students’ First Amendment rights by compelling them to affirm beliefs they may not hold but also undermines parents’ authority to form their children in faith and moral reasoning, Courthouse News Service reports.
In July 2024, a three-judge panel denied PDE’s request for a preliminary injunction, but that decision has been vacated pending a full court review, Courthouse News Service adds. A ruling is expected later this year, but no timetable has been announced.
During a March 19 hearing before the full United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit court, PDE’s attorney Cam Davis argued, “The district is free to express a viewpoint on gender identity, but is not free to punish students who dissent from that viewpoint.”
He warned the court that the school district is “hurting students by teaching them that different viewpoints should be punished.”
Several judges at the hearing raised questions about the scope and necessity of the school’s policy.
Judge Chad Readler, a Trump appointee, summed up the general skepticism: “The 17 of us likely won’t agree on the outcome of this case,” he said, according to Courthouse News Service. “But we all agree bullying is bad. Why do you need a specific policy for pronouns?”
Judge Amul Thapar, also a Trump appointee, pressed the school district’s attorney, Jaime Santos, for specific evidence of “misgendering” posing a significant disruption in students’ educations.
Santos replied that while studies show misgendering can be harmful, she conceded, “I don’t know about particular instances at Olentangy.”
Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, appointed by George W. Bush, expressed concern about labeling dissenting speech as harassment.
“That’s an astonishing concept to me—that the use of biological pronouns could be considered harassment,” he stated.
Ohio Solicitor General Elliot Gaiser, speaking for Ohio and 22 other states that filed an amici curiae brief in support of the plaintiff, defended the rights of students to act according to sincerely held religious beliefs—particularly regarding biological sex and gender.
“Schools cannot treat one side of the debate as harassment or silence dissenters by labeling them bullies,” he told the court.
Gaiser emphasized that students who use biological pronouns out of religious conviction are not engaging in bullying but are instead expressing faith-based truths respectfully and peacefully.
