education
ACLU goes up against PA school district for allowing parental consent for student gender transition
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Pennsylvania filed a federal discrimination complaint with the civil-rights divisions of both the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Education against one of the state’s largest school districts for “discriminating against gay and transgender students.”
The ACLU argues a proposed policy which makes teachers and staff members identify students by their legal names and biological sex unless the parents have approved otherwise, is discrimination against gay and trans students.
The lawsuit, filed October 6, accuses the Central Bucks School District of engaging in “illegal discrimination.” The complaint states the district has chronically failed “to take reasonable and necessary measures to address persistent and severe bullying and harassment of LGBTQ+ students generally, and gender non-conforming students in particular.”
National Review reports:
The complaint was filed on behalf of seven people, whose names and specific allegations — comprising 28 pages of the 72-page complaint — were redacted from the copy released publicly.
School board president Dana Hunter addressed the complaint at the beginning of an emotional and sometimes contentious board meeting on Tuesday night. She said the district is committed to every student and is “resolute and united in its zero tolerance for discrimination, bullying, or harassment of any kind.” The district’s polices, she said, are designed to protect students.
“Should a staff member fail to follow policies, they put student well-being at risk,” Hunter said.
The debate in Central Bucks is just the latest touchpoint in what has turned into a nationwide debate over how teachers and schools should handle students who want to change their name and gender identity in school, but without their parents’ knowledge. In nearby Virginia, the Department of Education released new guidelineslast month requiring teachers to obtain written permission from parents before beginning to treat students as transgender. Other school districts, including in Iowa and Wisconsin, have faced lawsuits for helping students to socially transition to another gender without their parents’ consent.
An elementary school in the suburbs of New York City has been teaching a “gender curriculum” to kindergarten children in an effort to promote “inclusion” in the school. Hillside Elementary School, part of the Hastings-on-Hudson Union Free District, uses photos of children to introduce “different identities.”
The New York Post reports that the course includes showing kindergarten students photos of other children which are used to “introduce vocabulary to describe characters of different identities,” including teaching them about the terms “cisgender, transgender, and non-binary,” according to a message to parents regarding the curriculum.
“Our gender curriculum focuses on Hillside’s core value of respect and aims to center discussions on gender identity. The students will learn and discuss that there is a lot you can’t tell about a person by simply looking at them,” the kindergarten level course description reads.
“The students will look at pictures of children and talk about what they notice and what they think they know about the children just from the pictures. Using their observations, we will then take the opportunity to introduce vocabulary to describe characters of different identities,” the school writes.
The “identity” being taught to children includes discussing “gender and the pronouns that you use,” and that “as we learn and grow, the words we use to describe our gender identity can grow too,” as described by the school.
Fox News Digital reached out to the school about the curriculum, to which the Hastings-on-Hudson Union Free District communications team said that the lessons have been in place for several years and are rooted in “Hillside’s core values of respect and fostering dignity for all students.”
“One 30-minute gender lesson is taught in each class one time per year. The classes are led by a certified educator, following a specific set of lessons designed to help students value the full diversity of their classmates,” Superintendent William S. McKersie said in a message to faculty and parents.
“The lessons have been created in alignment with the NYS Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework,” he wrote. The school noted that the lessons do not address sex education or sexuality. The school district said that while they usually have the courses posted publicly online, the gender lesson description has been taken off the website since going viral.
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