Three-judge panel says parental rights end at schoolhouse door

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A three-judge panel from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has handed a stunning defeat to parents ruling Nov. 2 that their rights do not “extend beyond the threshold of the school door.”

The case involves seven parents from Southern California’s Palmdale School District. The plaintiffs filed suit after their children—as young as first grade—were subjected to an explicit sex survey without their parents’ knowledge or informed consent.

“This decision is yet another demonstration of judicial tyranny,” Ron Prentice, executive director of the California Family Council, said in a news release. “It is a parent’s right, responsibility and freedom—no one else’s—to nurture, equip and educate their children with a worldview.

“While unbelievable, it appears that the court has now determined that government’s (public school) proclamations on family morality trump that of parents. This ruling diminishes the primary role of the family and home in the development of children, and only underscores the importance of presidential appointments to the federal court and U.S. Supreme Court.”

In writing the unanimous decision in Fields v. Palmdale School District, Judge Stephen Reinhardt concluded that "parents have a right to inform their children when and as they wish on the subject of sex. They have no constitutional right, however, to prevent a public school from providing its students with whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise, when and as the school determines that it is appropriate to do so."

Brian Fahling, senior trial attorney for the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy, said the decision puts schools firmly in control over the children.

“The court has held that once parents send their children to public schools the children are essentially guinea pigs that the school may do with as they please,” Fahling said in a news release.

Congress jumps in
The court ruling prompted the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a resolution Nov. 16 calling on the court to rehear the matter “en banc,” meaning the full court. House Resolution 547, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., passed 320-91. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from San Francisco, was one of 22 representatives who abstained from voting.

“Through its ruling, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has taken the voice of parents away when it comes to the education their children receive,” Murphy, the only child psychologist in Congress, said in a news release. “We should be supporting communication between teachers, administrators, school boards, and parents, not putting up barriers.”

According to Liberty Counsel—retained by the plaintiffs after the appellate ruling—officials at Mesquite Elementary School distributed a consent letter for parents of first-, third- and fifth-graders seeking permission for them to participate in a psychological research questionnaire.

Mathew D. Staver, president and general counsel for Liberty Counsel, said he plans to ask the court for a rehearing.

“This decision declares war on parental rights,” Staver said in an news release. "It essentially says that parents have no rights. Once you drop your kids off at school—according to this court's decision—you have severed all of your parental rights until you pick your kids up at the end of the day. But while they're in the public school's jurisdiction, there are no parents, according to this decision.”

Full disclosure?
The letter, the plaintiffs said, never revealed that some of the content would be sexual in nature; only that some of the questions could make some children uncomfortable. The purpose of the survey, parents were told, was to develop “a community baseline measure of children’s exposure to early trauma.”

According to Murphy some of the questions of concern included asking the students the frequency of things such as: “Touching my private parts too much,” “Thinking about sex when I don’t want to,” and “Having sex feelings in my body.”

Content comes to light
Parents only found out about the details of the questions from their children after the students filled out the questionnaire. The school, the congressman said, claimed the researcher switched questions on them.

Murphy said the district failed to provide parents with informed consent.

“This case should have reaffirmed a parent’s rights to informed consent before their children were used in psychological research,” Murphy said. “Instead, the 9th Circuit Court pulled an overreaching conclusion out of the stratosphere and declared parenting unconstitutional. They declared parents have no right to protect their children’s privacy.”

Published, December 2005

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