CHICAGO (OSV News) — The Thomas More Society announced Jan. 8 it has filed an emergency request with the U.S. Supreme Court that it restore a permanent injunction that strikes down aspects of California’s laws allowing public schools to conceal how a student expresses their gender identity at school from their parents.
Two days earlier the Catholic-run public interest law firm said it would file the request with the high court and also pursue a rehearing of its case against the California laws after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Jan. 5 temporarily blocked a Dec. 22 permanent injunction order the firm had succeeded in getting from U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez.
9th Circuit Court’s order
The 9th Circuit ruled the order blocked while the state of California appeals the injunction against its laws.
“Right now, California’s parental deception scheme is keeping families in the dark and causing irreparable harm. That’s why we’re asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene immediately,” said attorney Paul M. Jonna, special counsel for the Chicago-based Thomas More Society.
“The state is inserting itself unconstitutionally between parents and children, forcing schools to deceive families, and punishing teachers who tell the truth,” he said in a Jan. 8 statement.
In a Jan. 6 response to the 9th Circuit’s ruling, Jonna said the Thomas More Society was “deeply disappointed” by the order and would seek an “en banc” rehearing by the circuit court. He had also said then the firm would “simultaneously pursue review by the U.S. Supreme Court.”
An “en banc” hearing means 11 judges out of the 9th Circuit’s 29 judges would rehear the case.
Clients’ rights ‘will be vindicated’
“While the fight continues at the appellate level, we remain confident that our clients’ constitutional rights will ultimately be vindicated,” said Jonna. “Parents have a fundamental right, recognized by the Supreme Court for over a century, to direct their children’s upbringing. Teachers have a constitutional right to communicate honestly with parents without being forced to deceive them in violation of their faith.”
“California cannot override these rights,” he said, vowing “to take this case as far as necessary … to protect the families and educators who are being harmed by these policies.”
The Thomas More Society filed the case after it was contacted by two veteran teachers with the Escondido Union School District north of San Diego. The society said Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West “faced an impossible choice” of either lying to parents about their students’ gender transitions, which violated their religious beliefs, or risking “retaliation and disciplinary action” for not keeping the information from the parents.
Number of plaintiffs has grown
The society said that as the case unfolded, parents “who had been directly harmed” by the same requirements of the state’s multiple “gender secrecy laws” joined as plaintiffs.
In the case filing, Judge Benitez certified the case as a class action. He created two classes for those who oppose the laws — one class for the state’s public school teachers and one class for parents.
Benitez granted the injunction, prohibiting any employee in the California state-wide education system from applying or implementing laws that would “permit or require” state employees to refer to students by their chosen name or gender at school but not when they communicate with their parents, or to conceal a student’s gender transition from parents, among other similar measures.
‘Derogation’ of parental rights
He said the secrecy laws were a “derogation of the parents’ federal constitutional right to care for and raise their children” and called them an “unwarranted aggrandizing of a student’s state-created right to privacy.” He also said the teacher plaintiffs and the class “hold religious beliefs that are being severely burdened by the imposition of the parental exclusion policies.”
In the class certification, he ordered California’s education department to include in its training materials specifically for support of LGBTQ+ students the following paragraph:
“Parents and guardians have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses gender incongruence. Teachers and school staff have a federal constitutional right to accurately inform the parent or guardian of their student when the student expresses gender incongruence. These federal constitutional rights are superior to any state or local laws, state or local regulations, or state or local policies to the contrary.”
California’s education department immediately sought a stay of the permanent injunction.
Appellate judges’ ‘serious concerns’
In their unsigned decision granting a stay, the appellate judges said they “have serious concerns with the district court’s class certification and injunction for every parent of California’s millions of public school students and every public school employee in the state.”
The judges also called the injunction “sweeping, ambiguous,” said it “relies on a lax enforcement of class certification principles” and that, furthermore, it is based on “a faulty reading of the policies at issue.”
Peter Breen, executive vice president and head of litigation at Thomas More Society, called the stay a temporary setback.
“The district court’s thorough analysis of the constitutional issues remains sound. We will continue to stand with Elizabeth Mirabelli, Lori West, and the courageous families who brought this case forward. Their fight to restore transparency and parental involvement in California’s public schools is far from over,” he said in a statement.
Simone Orendain is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Chicago.
Updated on Jan. 9, 2026, at 8:47 p.m. ET
