SCOTUS decision on “transitioning” policies is a victory for parental rights – Catholic World Report

The Supreme Court’s March 2, 2026, decision in Mirabelli v. Bonta is another significant win for parental rights.

A divided Court, in its 6-3 unsigned per curiam, “for the court” order—part of its so-called shadow docket, wherein it addresses procedural matters and requests for emergency measures such as staying earlier judgments without oral arguments—enjoined enforcement of a board policy in California allowing students to transition in public schools without parental consent or knowledge.

In Mirabelli’s wake, this column briefly highlights its history and pertinent Supreme Court opinions before reflecting on its meaning for parental rights.

History

In Mirabelli v. Olson, two sets of parents in the Escondido Union School District (Escondido, CA) filed suit after their fifth and seventh-grade daughters unsuccessfully attempted suicide. Both daughters had undertaken “gender transitioning” at school without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

The parents challenged the school board’s policy, based on California’s Parental Exclusion Policies, which forbade teachers from notifying caregivers whose children, as young as fifth-grade, adopted gender identities and/or used pronouns different from their birth sexes unless the students agreed to such disclosures.

Further, two Christian middle school teachers challenged the policy that required them to hide students’ transgender status from caregivers as violating their deeply held religious beliefs about honoring parents as the primary guides in raising their children.

After the federal court enjoined the policy, the Ninth Circuit granted the board’s motion to stay its order pending a full appeal.

Supreme Court

In response to the parents’ and teachers’ emergency appeal of January 8, 2026, the Supreme Court partially restored the initial injunction, granting their request on March 2, 2026.

In its six-page opinion, less than three pages of which consisted of analysis, the Supreme Court found in favor of the parents by relying, most notably, on its own precedent from Pierce v. Society of Sisters and Mahmoud v. Taylor, (discussed below), recognizing the substantive due process rights of parents.

According to the Court, the parents who sought exemptions to raise their young in a manner consistent with their Christian beliefs are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim because the policies substantially interfered with their right “’to guide the religious development of their children.’”

The Justices added that parents who questioned the policies concealing information from them about the gender dysphoria of their young “likely violate [their] rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children.” The Court thus enjoined the policies both because the parents are likely to succeed on the merits of their claims and its failure to act would have caused them irreparable harm, such that balancing the equities required it to rule in their favor.

The Court did not address the teachers’ appeal, essentially rejecting their claim.

Other Opinions

Without explaining why, Justices Thomas and Alito would have heard the full appeal, including the issues raised by the teachers.

Justice Barrett’s four-page concurrence, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh, largely responded to Justice Kagan’s dissent. Barrett cautioned that the holding that the parents were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims was a preliminary determination in light of the irreparable harm the policies imposed on their substantive due process rights to direct the lives of their children.

In a dissent slightly longer than the majority opinion, Justice Kagan, who was joined by Justice Jackson, criticized the Court’s judgment as a “terse, tonally dismissive ruling,” arguing that it was written “in a slapdash way,” as she would have preferred the dispute to have first played out at the Ninth Circuit.

Justice Sotomayor dissented on the parents’ and teachers’ claims without a written opinion.

Reflections

Mirabelli restores much-needed balance in the ongoing battle that I have chronicled in Catholic World Report as courts continue to ignore Pierce’s having defined the primacy of parental rights. Pending final appeals, Mirabelli is another victory in preventing judicial overreach, as lower courts continually ignore clear precedent in Pierce and Mahmoud about who has the ultimate right to direct the education of children in forbidding public school officials from transitioning students without parental knowledge or consent.

The case is troubling, however, because local educational officials, following a directive from California’s Attorney General Bonta, sought to impose a policy that flies in the face of both common sense and clear century-old Supreme Court precedent in Pierce, defining the substantive due process rights of parents as the primary caregivers of their children. In Pierce, the Court famously reasoned that “[t]he child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”

Given Pierce’s unequivocal declaration on parental rights that the Supreme Court reaffirmed last year in Mahmoud (upholding the rights of an interfaith coalition of parents to excuse their children, as young as three, from explicit age-inappropriate sex education programming inconsistent with their faiths) it is confounding that public officials seek to exclude parents helping their children address such a significant matter as uncertainty over their sex/genders.

In fact, the Court commented that in Mirabelli “[i]ndeed, the intrusion on parents’ free exercise rights here—unconsented facilitation of a child’s gender transition—is greater than the introduction of LGBTQ storybooks …in Mahmoud v. Taylor.”

Mirabelli stands out because it places limits on what has become “an imperial Judiciary” that ignored parental rights in empowering school officials to run roughshod over parental rights. While not suggesting that parents should be granted the ability to micromanage the content of school curricula via the “heckler’s veto,” educators must be more respectful of their rights as primary caregivers of their children.

Yet, as reflected in a plethora of litigation evidenced in Mirabelli, the judiciary has “taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed.” As such, Mirabelli restored some equilibrium by recognizing parental rights, ensuring that public school officials respect boundary lines as to who exercises primary concern over the well-being of children.

Mirabelli represents a clash of basic beliefs and values. Put another way, will parents retain their God-given fundamental right in effect since time immemorial to direct the education and upbringing of their children in accordance with their religious values, or will they be forced to kowtow to the seemingly ever-changing politically correct dictates du jour of public officials?

In Mirabelli, then, it is unclear why state and local educational officials sought to usurp parental rights by refusing to inform them about what was happening with their young children on such an important matter as their confused awareness of their sexuality. In so doing, the Supreme Court acknowledged that these officials violated the parents’ First Amendment Free Exercise and Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process rights to raise their children in accordance with their religious beliefs.

Of course, children undergoing gender dysphoria need care, compassion, respect, and guidance, most especially from their parents. However, it is not in the best interest of children to allow them to live what amounts to bifurcated lives by referring to themselves—without parental knowledge and consent—by one name and gender at school and another at home. This only adds to their confusion while almost certainly leading to family strife. Hopefully, educator-activists, however well-intentioned they may be, will honor the primacy of parental rights by no longer interfering in family matters by refusing to inform caregivers about issues and developments of great importance in the lives of their confused children.