Tag: LGBTQ

  • At Moms for Liberty summit, parents urged to turn their grievances into lawsuits

    At Moms for Liberty summit, parents urged to turn their grievances into lawsuits

    KISSIMMEE, Fla. — It’s not a rebrand. But the Moms for Liberty group that introduced itself three years ago as a band of female “joyful warriors” shedding domestic modesty to make raucous public challenges to masks, books and curriculum, is trying to glow up.

    The group’s national summit this past weekend at a convention center outside Orlando leaned into family (read: parental rights), faith — and youth. The latter appeared to be a bid to join the cool kids who are the new face of conservatism in America (hint: young, Christian, very male), as well as a recognition of the group’s “diversity,” which includes grandparents, men and kids. 

    But even as the youth — including 20- and 30-something podcasters and social media influencers, as well as student members of the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA — brought a high-energy vibe, stalwart members got a new assignment. Where past Moms for Liberty attendees were urged to run for school board, this year they were encouraged to turn their grievances into legal challenges. 

    Moms for Liberty CEO and co-founder Tina Descovich acknowledged that while many of them had experienced backlashes as a result of running for school board or publicly challenging books, curricula and policies, they needed to continue the fight. (The more pugnacious co-founder, Tiffany Justice, is now at Heritage Action, an arm of right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation.) 

    “You have lost family, you have lost friends, you have lost neighbors, you’ve lost jobs, you’ve lost whole careers,” she said. Yet she insisted that it was vital that they “shake off the shackles of fear and stand for truth or we are going to lose Western civilization as a whole.”

    Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education. 

    The gathering held up “the free state of Florida” as an example of Republican policies to be emulated, including around school choice and parental rights. The state’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, boasted of having created a state Office of Parental Rights last spring, describing it as “a law firm for parents.” 

    He trumpeted the state’s lawsuit against Target over the “market risks” of LGBTQ+ pride-themed merchandise and encouraged parents to reach out with potential legal actions. “If you’re identifying one of these wrongs that’s violating your rights and then subjecting our kids to danger and evil, then we want to know about it,” he said. “And we’re going to bring the heat in court to shut it down.”

    Tina Descovich, CEO and co-founder of Moms for Liberty, was interviewed on Real America’s Voice, a conservative news and entertainment network that set up a remote studio outside of the Sun Ballroom at the Moms for Liberty national summit. Credit: Laura Pappano for The Hechinger Report

    The shifting legal landscape, not just in Florida but nationally, had speakers gushing about the opportunity to file new challenges, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor in June. It gives parents broad power to object to school materials, including with LGBTQ+ themes, and the right to remove their children from public school on days when such materials are discussed. 

    “This is where we need to take that big Supreme Court victory and start fleshing it out,” said Matt Sharp, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian law firm. He added that they were “needing warriors, joyful warriors, to file cases to start putting meat on the bones of what that does.” 

    The directive to file suit was not just around opt-out policies, which were the basis for the Mahmoud case. (Moms for Liberty has opt-out forms and instructions on its website.) Rather, attendees were also urged to file lawsuits in support of school prayer; against school policies that let students use different names and pronouns without parental consent (what Moms for Liberty terms “secret transitions”); and to give parents access to surveys students take at school, including around mental health.

    “We need people willing to stand up legally and be, you know, named plaintiffs,” Kimberly S. Hermann, president of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, a conservative policy group, said on a panel featuring two moms who sued their school districts. Winning a lawsuit or even just bringing one in one state, said Hermann, can get other school districts and states to adopt policies, presumably to avoid lawsuits themselves. 

    “One offensive litigation can have this amazing ripple effect,” she said. She and others made clear that there is staff to provide support. The legal groups will “stand with you,” said Sharp, “whether you’re passing the law or passing the local policy all the way to litigating these cases.”

    Even as speakers criticized public schools particularly around LGBTQ+ issues, not as a form of inclusion but as foisting views into classrooms, they relished the chance to infuse their values into schools. 

    Filing these lawsuits is more than “just fighting for your role as parents,” Sharp told parents in a breakout session. “You’re ultimately fighting for your kids’ ability to be in their schools and make a difference, to be the salt and light in those classrooms with their friends and to take our message of freedom, of faith, of justice and to really spread it all across the schools.”

    Related: America’s schools and colleges are operating under two totally different sets of rules for sex discrimination 

    Overall, this year’s Moms for Liberty event lacked the obvious drama of recent years. The flood of protesters in 2023 in Philadelphia required a large police presence and barricades around the hotel, along with warnings not to wear Moms for Liberty lanyards on the streets. 

    This year, there were no protests. That was partly because the event was held in a secluded resort convention center that could accommodate 800 (larger than the 500-ish of past hotels). But the group failed to fill the venue or attract much media attention. There was on-location broadcast by Real America’s Voice, a conservative news and entertainment network, from a set outside the Sun Ballroom. (Steve Bannon interviewed Descovich on his show, “The War Room.”)

    It also didn’t draw opposition because protesters had a bigger target. Saturday saw “No Kings” rallies across the country, with thousands decrying what they see as President Donald Trump’s authoritarianism. “I forgot it was happening since they’re mostly ignored these days,” state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, (D-Orlando) and a senior advisor to LGBTQ+ rights group Equality Florida, said in a text message about the Moms for Liberty event. Liz Mikitarian, founder of the national group, Stop Moms for Liberty, which is based in Florida, said the moms “are still a threat” but not worth organizing a protest against. 

    It was also a quieter affair than last year’s in Washington, D.C. There, Trump’s appearance fed a party atmosphere with Southern rock, sequined MAGA outfits and a cash bar. (This year, Trump appeared, but only in a prerecorded video message.)

    Sequined merchandise for sale at the Moms for Liberty gathering by the company Make America Sparkle Again included tops and jackets that paid tribute to Charlie Kirk, the slain founder of Turning Point USA. Credit: Laura Pappano for The Hechinger Report

    The three-day event, of course, aired familiar grievances in familiarly florid language — conservative school choice activist Corey DeAngelis railed against teacher unions over the “far-left radical agenda that they’re trying to push down children’s throats in the classroom.” Other sessions covered the expected — the alleged dangers of LGBTQ+ policies, in sports, restrooms, school curricula and books — but there was also discussion of concerns (shared on left and right) over youth screen use, online predators and artificial intelligence.

    The event made room for MAHA, the Make America Healthy Again movement led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services. Descovich interviewed Dr. Joseph Ladapo, the Florida surgeon general who is working to eliminate all vaccine mandates for the state’s schoolchildren.

    But the move by Moms for Liberty to attract young conservatives elevated the energy in the room. It was apparent not only in a tribute to Kirk, the slain founder of Turning Point USA, which trains young conservatives on high school and college campuses. About 40 Florida TPUSA members took the ballroom stage to accept the “Liberty Sword,” the group’s highest honor, posthumously awarded to Kirk. 

    Related: Red school boards in a blue state asked Trump for help — and got it

    It also showed up in a breakout session of mostly conservative social media influencers and podcasters who offered tips on using humor and handling online trolls: Lydia Shaffer (aka the Conservative Barbie 2.0), Alex Stein, Gates Garcia, Kaitlin Bennett, Angela Belcamino (known as “The Bold Lib,” who said she was surprised to have been invited), and Jayme Franklin, who in addition to her podcast is the Gen Z founder of The Conservateur, a conservative lifestyle brand that The New Yorker called “Vogue, But for Trumpers.”

    They have built huge followings based on their compulsion to provoke. “We need to go back to biblical values of what it means to be a real man and what it means to be a real woman,” urged Franklin. “People want that guidance, and that needs to begin at church. We need to push people back into the pews.”

    Their inclusion, like that of conservative commentator Benny Johnson, who moderated a panel, “Fathers: The Defenders of the Family,” appeared to recognize a need to expand the base — and be edgier. Johnson charged out on stage and trumpeted that “God’s first commandment to us was, ‘Go, be fruitful, multiply.’ Go make babies!!!!” He quipped that “right-wing moms, they’re happier, right?” and asked the crowd, “Any trad wife moms out there?”

    The phrase is shorthand for a woman who embraces a traditional domestic role, often with an emphasis on fashion and style. Johnson — who credited Kirk for prodding him to find Jesus, get married and become a father (he has four children) — argued that Republicans, especially those in Gen Z, should embrace the traditional nuclear family identity as a winning political move.

    “We are the party of parents. We are the party of children,” he said, adding that traditional values were already dominating culture and politics. “We live in a center-right country. And I’m tired of pretending that we don’t,” he said, and showed a map of red and blue votes in the 2024 presidential election. “This is the shift. You live in a red kingdom.”

    Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at [email protected].  

    This story about Moms for Liberty was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • LGBTQ+ Rural Teens Find More Support Online Than in Their Communities – The 74

    LGBTQ+ Rural Teens Find More Support Online Than in Their Communities – The 74


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    New research has found that rural LGBTQ+ teens experience significant challenges in their communities and turn to the internet for support.

    The research from Hopelab and the Born This Way Foundation looked at what more than 1,200 LGBTQ+ teens faced and compared the experiences of those in rural communities with those of teens in suburban and urban communities. The research found that rural teens are more likely to give and receive support through their online communities and friends than via their in-person relationships.

    “The rural young people we’re seeing were reporting having a lot less support in their homes, in their communities, and their schools,” Mike Parent, a principal researcher at Hopelab, said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. “They weren’t doing too well in terms of feeling supported in the places they were living, though they were feeling supported online.”

    However, the research found that rural LGBTQ+ teens had the same sense of pride in who they were as suburban and urban teens.

    “The parallel, interesting finding was that we didn’t see differences in their internal sense of pride, which you might kind of expect if they feel all less supported,” he said. “What was surprising, in a very good way, was that indication of resilience or being able to feel a strong sense of their internal selves despite this kind of harsh environment they might be in.”

    Researchers recruited young people between the ages of 15 and 24 who identified as LGBTQ+ through targeted ads on social media. After surveying the respondents during August and September of last year, the researchers also followed up some of the surveys with interviews, Parent said.

    According to the study, rural teens were more likely than their urban and suburban counterparts to find support online. Of the rural respondents, 56% of rural young people reported receiving support from others online several times a month compared to 51% of urban and suburban respondents, and 76% reported giving support online, compared to 70% of urban and suburban respondents.

    Conversely, only 28% of rural respondents reported feeling supported by their schools, compared to 49% of urban and suburban respondents, the study found, and 13% of rural respondents felt supported by their communities, compared to 35% of urban and suburban respondents.

    Rural LGBTQ+ young people are significantly more likely to suffer mental health issues because of the lack of support where they live, researchers said. Rural LGBTQ+ young people were more likely to meet the threshold for depression (57% compared to 45%), and more likely to report less flourishing than their suburban/urban counterparts (43% to 52%).

    The study found that those LGBTQ+ young people who received support from those they lived with, regardless of where they live, are more likely to report flourishing (50% compared to 35%) and less likely to meet the threshold for depression (52% compared to 63%).

    One respondent said the impact of lack of support impacted every aspect of their lives.

    “Not being able to be who you truly are around the people that you love most or the communities that you’re in is going to make somebody depressed or give them mental issues,” they said in survey interviews, according to Hopelab. “Because if you can’t be who you are around the people that you love most and people who surround you, you’re not gonna be able to feel the best about your well-being.”

    Respondents said connecting with those online communities saved their lives.

    “Throughout my entire life, I have been bullied relentlessly. However, when I’m online, I find that it is easier to make friends… I met my best friend through role play [games],” one teen told researchers. “Without it, I wouldn’t be here today. So, in the long run, it’s the friendships I’ve made online that have kept me alive all these years.”

    Having support in rural areas, especially, can provide rural LGBTQ+ teens with a feeling of belonging, researchers said.

    “Our findings highlight the urgent need for safe, affirming in-person spaces and the importance of including young people in shaping the solutions,” Claudia-Santi F. Fernandes, vice president of research and evaluation at Born This Way Foundation, said in a statement. “If we want to improve outcomes, especially for LGBTQ+ young people in rural communities, their voices–and scientific evidence–must guide the work.”

    Parent said the survey respondents stressed the importance of having safe spaces for LGBTQ+ young people to gather in their own communities.

    “I think most of the participants recognize that you can’t do a lot to change your family if they’re not supportive,” he said. “What they were saying was that finding ways for schools to be supportive and for communities to be supportive in terms of physical spaces (that allowed them) to express themselves safely (and) having places where they can gather and feel safe, uh, were really important to them.”

    Hopelab seeks to address mental health in young people through evidence-based innovation, according to its organizers. The Born This Way Foundation was co-founded by Lady Gaga and her mother, West Virginia native Cynthia Bisset Germanotta.

    The organization is focused on ending bullying and building up communities, while using research, programming, grants, and partnerships to engage young people and connect them to mental health resources, according to the foundation’s website.

    This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.


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  • Florida district won’t rehire teacher in LGBTQ+ controversy over student’s preferred name

    Florida district won’t rehire teacher in LGBTQ+ controversy over student’s preferred name

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    Brevard Country Public Schools will not rehire the veteran Florida English teacher at the center of an LGBTQ+ controversy over using a student’s preferred name, according to local news reports. 

    Melissa Calhoun, who taught at Satellite High School and had worked in Brevard County schools for over a decade, was initially reprimanded by the district in April for calling the student by the name they wanted to use.

    Her case marked one of the first high-profile incidents of a teacher being disciplined for such a reason in a state that has led the charge for strictly applying anti-LGBTQ+ laws to K-12 classrooms. The rebuke led to her contract not being renewed and her professional certificate being placed under state review. Calhoun ultimately got to keep her teacher’s license under a recent settlement.

    The situation arose from Florida’s 2023 law restricting the use in public schools of names and pronouns that don’t align with a student or employee’s sex assigned at birth.

    However, by the end of July, the Florida Department of Education’s Education Practices Commission reached a settlement with Calhoun that allowed her to teach on probation for one year, fined her $750, and required her to complete an ethics and education course.

    Nonetheless, Brevard County will not rehire Calhoun, according to a statement Superintendent Mark Rendell shared with local media outlets.

    “Teachers hold a powerful position of influence, and that influence must never override the rights of parents to be involved in critical decisions affecting their children,” said Rendell. “This was not a mistake. This was a conscious and deliberate decision to engage in gender affirmation without parental knowledge.” 

    Calhoun, who taught the student before and after the 2023 law, told News 6 that using the student’s preferred name was a mistake. “There wasn’t any intention to subvert this parent’s wishes,” she said. “This happened out of habit and frankly was an unfortunate oversight on my part.” 

    Rendell said he expects Calhoun to complete the state’s one-year probation requirement “before any consideration of employment.” 

    Four months prior, Calhoun posted on LinkedIn that she was looking for work elsewhere, primarily in corporate training roles.

    Calhoun’s situation comes as “Don’t Say Gay” and other anti-LGBTQ+ state laws raise questions for teachers on how to navigate relationships with students and parents while staying within legal bounds.

    According to a survey conducted by RAND Corp. between April and May 2022, when some of the earlier laws were passed and implemented, about 1 in 4 teachers reported that local and state restrictions on race and gender topics had influenced their choices of curriculum materials or instructional practices. 

    Even outside of states with restrictions, teachers have reported feeling spillover impacts, according to the research.

    Teachers told RAND that teaching students under the new laws made the job more difficult, including making it more challenging to engage students in learning, support their critical thinking skills, and develop their ability to engage in different perspectives and build empathy. 

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  • Schools and colleges nationwide face Trump investigations

    Schools and colleges nationwide face Trump investigations

    The Trump administration moved quickly after taking office to open dozens of investigations into schools and universities nationwide. Most of those announced publicly mark a dramatic shift in priorities from previous administrations.

    The Education Department and other agencies are looking into allegations of antisemitism and racial discrimination against white students at dozens of colleges. The agency also has begun investigating policies that protect transgender athletes and, in some cases, targeted entire state departments of education as part of that work.

    Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education. 

    Here’s a look at investigations the Trump administration has announced. This map and list will be updated. Know of an investigation we missed? Tell us: [email protected]. 

    Although the majority of investigations that have been opened are in states considered to be liberal, almost every state in the country has at least one entity under scrutiny. And many institutions face more than one investigation.

    Related: Tracking Trump: His actions to dismantle the Education Department, and more

    To date, colleges and universities have received the most attention from the administration, with more than 60 targeted over alleged incidents of antisemitism and another 45 under scrutiny over their work with a program that aims to increase diversity among Ph.D. candidates. Most of the K-12 investigations involve transgender policies, including those about access to sports and locker rooms. 

    Contact investigations editor Sarah Butrymowicz at [email protected] or on Signal: @sbutry.04

    This story about Trump investigations was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • HHS Condemns Gender-Affirming Care in Report That Finds ‘Sparse’ Evidence of Harm – The 74

    HHS Condemns Gender-Affirming Care in Report That Finds ‘Sparse’ Evidence of Harm – The 74


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    This story was originally reported by Orion Rummler of The 19th. Meet Orion and read more of his reporting on gender, politics and policy.

    On Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a 400-page analysis of research on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, as directed by President Donald Trump. The agency used the release of the report to declare that available science does not support providing gender-affirming care to trans youth. LGBTQ+ advocacy groups worry the report will be used to further restrict gender-affirming care and to change medical guidelines in ways that harm trans youth.

    The president mandated the report in an executive order condemning the medical treatment — without evidence — as a form of mutilation, amid a broader push by the administration to exclude trans people from public life. Trump’s order asked the health agency to review the “best practices for promoting the health of children who assert gender dysphoria,” while pressuring youth clinics to halt treatment or lose federal funding.

    Now, the HHS has produced that report. The agency combed through research on the outcomes of puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, social transition, psychotherapy, and the rare cases of surgeries on adolescents and young adults diagnosed with gender dysphoria. 

    Gender dysphoria, the reason that most trans people undergo gender-affirming care, is a strong and persistent distress felt when one’s body is out of sync with their gender identity. Without treatment, gender dysphoria can lead to severe negative impacts in day-to-day life. 

    The agency states in its executive summary of the report that the document is not meant to provide clinical practice guidelines or issue legislative or policy recommendations. However, the report does imply that health care providers should refuse to offer gender-affirming care to adolescents and young adults on the basis that such care comes with the potential for risk — despite little evidence for that risk actually being found in the report. 

    “The evidence for benefit of pediatric medical transition is very uncertain, while the evidence for harm is less uncertain,” the executive summary states. “When medical interventions pose unnecessary, disproportionate risks of harm, healthcare providers should refuse to offer them even when they are preferred, requested, or demanded by patients.”

    In its research review, the HHS determined that evidence measuring the effects of gender-affirming care on psychological outcomes, quality of life, regret and long-term health is of “very low” quality. This conclusion ignores decades of research, as well as a recent survey of more than 90,000 transgender people in the United States that found an overwhelming majority report more life satisfaction after having transitioned. Access to gender-affirming care has been linked to lower odds of suicidality and depression in trans youth, while gender-affirming surgeries have been found to lower psychological distress for adults.

    Even when analyzing research that the administration deemed low-bias, the HHS found “sparse” to no evidence of harm from gender-affirming care. What’s more, the report frequently found evidence demonstrating the benefits of gender-affirming care — though it ultimately downplays those findings as not significant. 

    Available research on puberty blockers found high satisfaction ratings and low rates of regret. A systematic review of hormone replacement therapy described improved gender dysphoria and body satisfaction. Another found that hormone treatment leads to improved mental health. Two before-and-after studies reported reduced treatment needs or lower levels of suicidality and self-harm after hormone treatment. When measuring safety outcomes of hormone treatment, side effects did not have a major impact on treatment and complications were limited. 

    Despite these findings, the Department of Health and Human Services advertised the report in a Thursday news release as one that “highlights a growing body of evidence pointing to significant risks” of gender-affirming care. At the White House briefing room Thursday, deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller touted the new report and attributed the idea of being transgender as part of a “cancerous communist woke culture” that is “destroying this country.” 

    There are side effects to many of the medications that transgender people — and cisgender people — take to receive gender-affirming care, as is the case with most medical treatments. These side effects, like the risk of decreased bone density when taking puberty blockers, are closely monitored and treated by doctors and communicated to patients.

    LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations denounced the report as a political attack on transgender youth. Multiple groups said that the report’s endorsement of psychotherapy as a “noninvasive alternative” to puberty blockers and hormone treatment amounts to an endorsement of conversion therapy — a practice wherein mental health professionals try to change a youth’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

    “It is already clear that this report is a willful distortion of the evidence intended to stoke fear about a field of safe and effective medicine that has existed for decades, in order to justify dangerous practices which amount to conversion therapy,” said Sinead Murano Kinney, health policy analyst at Advocates for Trans Equality. 

    The Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ+ rights organization, accused the HHS of producing a report that is attempting to lay the groundwork to replace medical care for trans and nonbinary people with conversion therapy. 

    “Trans people are who we are. We’re born this way. And we deserve to live our best lives and have a fair shot and equal opportunity at living a good life,” said Jay Brown, chief of staff at the Human Rights Campaign. “This report … lays the groundwork to push parents and doctors aside and allow politicians to subject our kids to the debunked practice of conversion therapy.” 

    No authors or contributors are named in the report or in its executive summary. The agency says these names are being initially withheld to “maintain the integrity of this process,” and states that chapters of the document were subject to peer review.


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  • Yeshiva U Accepts LGBTQ+ Student Group but Not “Pride” Clubs

    Yeshiva U Accepts LGBTQ+ Student Group but Not “Pride” Clubs

    Less than a week after Yeshiva University agreed to recognize an LGBTQ+ student club as part of a legal settlement, university president Ari Berman apologized for the way the university conveyed the announcement and stressed that “pride” clubs still run counter to the values of the Modern Orthodox Jewish university, Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported. He emphasized that the newly approved club would function “in accordance with halacha,” or Jewish law.

    “I deeply apologize to the members of our community—our students and parents, alumni and friends, faculty and Rabbis—for the way the news was rolled out,” Berman, a rabbi, wrote in an email to students Tuesday. “Instead of clarity, it sowed confusion. Even more egregiously, misleading ‘news’ articles said that Yeshiva had reversed its position, which is absolutely untrue.”

    The university has been mired in a legal battle with its LGBTQ+ student group, the YU Pride Alliance, since 2021, when the group sued for official university recognition. Yeshiva said it wasn’t legally required to recognize the club because of Orthodoxy’s stance against same-sex relations. The two parties announced a settlement last week in which students will run an LGBTQ+ club called Hareni that will “operate in accordance with the approved guidelines of Yeshiva University’s senior rabbis,” according to a joint statement issued last Thursday.

    LGBTQ+ students celebrated the settlement as a new milestone. But Berman framed the settlement as doubling down on an old proposal from 2022, when the university sought to create its own LGBTQ+ student club called Kol Yisrael Areivim. Plaintiffs rejected the plan at the time, on the grounds that the club wouldn’t be student-run. But Berman said Hareni was similarly created “to support students who are striving to live authentic, uncompromising” lives within the bounds of Jewish law, “as previously described.”

    “The Yeshiva has always conveyed that what a Pride club represents is antithetical to the undergraduate program in which the traditional view of marriage and genders being determined at birth are transmitted,” Berman wrote in his message to students. “The Yeshiva never could and never would sanction such an undergraduate club and it is due to this that we entered litigation.”

    As he sees it, “last week, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against YU accepted to run Hareni, instead of what they were originally suing us for, moved to end the case, and the case has been dismissed.”

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  • Residential Communities Centered on Race, LGBTQ Closed for 2025

    Residential Communities Centered on Race, LGBTQ Closed for 2025

    In the wake of federal and state bans on diversity, equity and inclusion, several colleges and universities are eliminating the option for students to live in culture-based housing starting next fall—a trend that could signal increased attacks on certain student resources that went largely untouched under previous state-level DEI bans.

    The University of Iowa confirmed to Inside Higher Ed that it will be ceasing operations of three of its living-learning communities: All In, for LGBTQ students; Unidos, for Latino students; and Young, Gifted and Black, for Black students. North Carolina State University will also shut down two culture-based dorms—called Living and Learning Villages at NCSU—dedicated to Native American and Black students, as first reported in The Nubian Message, the college’s Black student-led newspaper.

    In both cases, the institutions will no longer offer the residential communities starting next semester. Both NCSU and Iowa are retaining other learning communities focused on academic majors and other interests.

    The cancellations come in the wake of President Donald Trump’s crusade against all things even tangentially related to diversity, equity and inclusion. A Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter from the Department of Education stated that federal law prohibits the use of race in relation to a variety of campus programs and activities, including housing, going beyond the restrictions set by most statewide anti-DEI legislation.

    In the aftermath of that letter, many universities—including some private institutions and institutions in solidly blue states—began scrubbing words related to DEI from their websites and shuttering DEI offices. But only a handful of institutions have gotten rid of the housing communities, which have often been lauded for strengthening students’ sense of belonging on campus. (Belonging is associated with higher rates of retention and mental well-being, multiple studies have found.)

    A spokesman for the University of Iowa did not say what led to the decision to close the three living-learning communities. Iowa passed legislation last year banning diversity, equity and inclusion offices on college campuses. The university also announced Thursday that it would be permanently shuttering its DEI office, which it had rearranged and renamed to the Division of Access, Opportunity, and Diversity as a result of last year’s legislation.

    NCSU did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment but told The Nubian Message that the changes were “part of the university’s ongoing review of compliance with executive actions issued by the federal government and UNC System policy.”

    Another institution, the University of Florida, has removed the option to sign up for any of its nonacademic learning communities for next semester, including those dedicated to Black, first-generation, international, LGBTQ+ and out-of-state students, plus one for students in the arts. According to The Alligator, the university’s student paper, the university also changed language on its housing website from describing the learning communities as “interest-based communities” to “academic-based communities.”

    In an email to the campus community, the institution said the change was related to the university’s housing master plan.

    “The University of Florida’s Housing & Residence Life is unwavering in our commitment to providing community-orientated facilities where residents are empowered to learn, innovate and succeed. As we enter a 10-year Housing Master Planning process, all programmatic offerings are being evaluated to ensure we continue to provide a premiere on-campus living experience,” the message read. “As a result, we are pausing all activities associated with non-academic Living Learning Communities.”

    But some students have expressed concern that the elimination of the communities focused on identity may actually be related to Trump’s anti-DEI push or existing Florida anti-DEI legislation.

    “Cancelling the activities of marginalized LLCs follows a long history of UF stripping protections from vulnerable students,” reads a petition calling on the university to reverse its decision. “It is clear that this latest attack on safe housing is only part of a larger plan to transform the UF campus into a space that is no longer safe for marginalized groups. LLCs will not be the last protection to be targeted.”

    A Best Practice to Support Students

    The Young, Gifted and Black learning community debuted in 2016 in response to a proposal by a group of students, The Daily Iowan, the University of Iowa’s student newspaper, reported at the time.

    The university’s housing website says that students living in YGB “will be challenged to understand the various experiences among the African/Black diaspora, encouraged to learn and develop critical thinking skills outside the classroom, relate your passions to your academics and better Iowa’s Black Community through campus involvement.” Students who live on the floor are also required to take a course on African American culture.

    Sandrah Nasimiyu, an Iowa alumna, lived in the community in the 2019–20 academic year—though, of course, her time there was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. Her happiest memories in college took place in the residence hall, she told Inside Higher Ed, from debriefing with her floor mates after a long day of classes to a memorable game night when her friends tried, unsuccessfully, to teach her to play spades.

    “I was already at a [predominantly white institution]. We live in Iowa—I had grown up in the suburbs and really wanted to have some form of community,” she said. “Where you put your head at night, where you’re going to spend the most time, you have to feel comfortable … when I stepped off that floor, I was in an environment I see all the time that wasn’t made for me.”

    Nasimiyu is still friends with several people she met in the brief time she lived there. Sometimes, she recalled, Black students who didn’t live on YGB would tell her that they struggled to make Black friends on campus; Black people make up just 2.8 percent of the student body at Iowa.

    LGBTQ+ and culture-based residence halls have come under fire from conservatives before; in 2023, the conservative campus group Young Americans for Freedom criticized Lavender Living Learning Community, the LGBTQ+ dorm at UF, for “segregating” students and “bombarding” them with leftism because its residents were encouraged to take a course on social justice. Right-wing news sources like Campus Reform and The Daily Caller, too, have discredited affinity housing as segregation.

    But advocates for these spaces have long countered that residents of learning communities are rarely, if ever, required to be a certain race or identity. Jason Lynch, a professor of higher education at Appalachian State University and an expert in housing and residential life, said he saw firsthand that a number of non-Black students lived in the Black residential community when he worked in residential life at a previous institution.

    Beyond that, though, he noted that the communities “are seen as a best practice, a high-impact practice … LLCs are a direct way to combat loneliness and isolation. We’re going to see a rise in mental health [concerns], especially for these minority communities” if these communities vanish.

    Restricting LGBTQ+ Housing

    At the same time that some campuses are doing away with LGBTQ+ affinity housing, others are overhauling inclusive housing in other ways. Florida State University recently came under fire for removing an option on its housing application that allows students to indicate that they would like to live in LGBTQ-friendly housing.

    Unlike the learning communities, this option doesn’t place students in a particular dorm, but rather attempts to pair the student with someone who would be accepting and welcoming of an LGBTQ+ roommate, Marco Lofaso, an FSU student and member of the campus’s Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter, told Inside Higher Ed. LGBTQ+ housing has been available at FSU since 2021.

    But the option was soon reinstated after student backlash—though the university never directly answered why it had been removed, telling the student newspaper, “Florida State University routinely reviews and refreshes campus information and messaging on a regular basis to ensure information is up to date and accurate. During this review, a previously used question was omitted from the returning student housing application for the 2025–26 academic year. A revised version of the question will be included in the new student housing application when it is released Feb. 27.”

    FSU did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment.

    The state of Utah also recently passed a law targeting trans students that requires any students who live in gender-segregated housing to live in the housing that aligns with their “biological sex.” However, the law doesn’t prevent institutions from offering gender-neutral housing.

    At least one institution has updated its housing policies to comply with the law, which passed in February. In an emailed statement, a spokesman for Utah State University said that the institution “strives to create a welcoming environment where all students who live on campus are comfortable so they can focus on succeeding in their studies. Consistent with the new law, USU’s sex-segregated housing will be assigned based on an individual’s biological sex at birth.”

    The spokesman added that the university will continue to provide gender-inclusive housing “that meet the needs of all residents and in a manner that treats everyone with dignity and respect.” He did not respond to a question about how the university will determine residents’ biological sexes.

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  • LAWSUIT: LGBTQ student group sues to overturn Texas A&M’s unconstitutional drag ban

    LAWSUIT: LGBTQ student group sues to overturn Texas A&M’s unconstitutional drag ban

    HOUSTON, Texas, March 5, 2025 — The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of an LGBTQ+ student organization to block a new policy from the Texas A&M University System that bans drag performances on its 11 public campuses — a clear violation of the First Amendment.

    FIRE is asking a court in the Southern District of Texas to halt Texas A&M officials from enforcing the drag ban, abruptly adopted on Friday afternoon. The lawsuit is on behalf of the Queer Empowerment Council, a coalition of student organizations at Texas A&M University-College Station and the organizers of the fifth annual “Draggieland” event that was scheduled to be held on campus on March 27. 

    “We refuse to let Texas A&M dictate which voices belong on campus,” said the Queer Empowerment Council. “Drag is self-expression, drag is discovery, drag is empowerment, and no amount of censorship will silence us.”

    Texas A&M students first held “Draggieland” (a portmanteau of “Drag” and “Aggieland,” a nickname for Texas A&M) at the campus theatre complex in 2020, and the event has been held on campus annually ever since. But last Friday, the Board of Regents suddenly voted to ban drag events entirely across all 11 Texas A&M campuses. 

    “The board finds that it is inconsistent with the system’s mission and core values of its universities, including the value of respect for others, to allow special event venues of the universities to be used for drag shows,” the board’s resolution reads. The regents also claimed that drag performances are “offensive” and “likely to create or contribute to a hostile environment for women.”

    “Public universities can’t shut down student expression simply because the administration doesn’t like the ‘ideology’ or finds the expression ‘demeaning,’” said FIRE attorney Adam Steinbaugh. “That’s true not only of drag performances, but also religion, COVID, race, politics, and countless other topics where campus officials are too often eager to silence dissent.”

    The regents’ attempts to justify the drag ban as anything other than illegal viewpoint discrimination are feeble. The board admits they want to ban drag on campus because they find it “demeans women,” “promotes gender ideology,” or runs contrary to their “values”—- but the First Amendment squarely protects speech that offends and even angers others. And in all cases, it prevents campus officials from silencing speech because they disagree with the “ideology.” As a taxpayer-funded university system, Texas A&M campuses cannot treat some student events differently simply because they dislike the view being expressed. 

    “Even putting on an on-campus production of Shakespeare or Mrs. Doubtfire, or taking part in powderpuff, could be banned at A&M if some hostile administrator thinks they ‘promote gender ideology,’” said FIRE senior attorney JT Morris. “But if the First Amendment means anything, it’s that the government can’t silence ideologies they don’t like — real or perceived.”

    Title IX’s prohibition on creating a “hostile environment” also does not give public universities the ability to run around the First Amendment. FIRE has long seen efforts to suppress speech on the basis that it might contribute to a “hostile environment” because someone finds it offensive, but if speech can be suppressed because someone believes it is offensive, no speech is safe. The First Amendment does not permit public universities to suppress speech because someone thinks it is inappropriate.

    In order to fit the definition of harassment the Supreme Court has established, speech must be “objectively offensive” AND “severe” AND “pervasive.” A once-a-year drag show in an enclosed theatre that requires a ticket to enter doesn’t even come close to satisfying those strict conditions.

    “If other students dislike or disagree with Draggieland, the solution is simple: don’t go,” said FIRE attorney Jeff Zeman. “Or they could organize a protest, as students opposing drag have in the past. The First Amendment protects drag and the ability to criticize drag — and it forbids the government silencing the side it disagrees with.”

    Finally, the regents’ motion notes that “there are alternative locations for such events off-campus.” But that violates the First Amendment, too. The government cannot censor speech in places the First Amendment protects it, just because a speaker might express themselves elsewhere. “Draggieland” highlights why that principle is so vital: if a student group can’t reach their campus community with their message, then their message can’t fulfill its purpose.

    In the face of unconstitutional censorship, Draggieland organizers have remained unbowed. They have announced to supporters that they will hold an on-campus “Day of Drag” protest on Thursday and that they are committed to holding the event even if forced off-campus.

    “We are committed to ensuring that our voices are heard, and that Draggieland will go on, no matter the obstacles we face,” the Queer Empowerment Council announced.

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought—the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE recognizes that colleges and universities play a vital role in preserving free thought within a free society. To this end, we place a special emphasis on defending the individual rights of students and faculty members on our nation’s campuses, including freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience.

    CONTACT:

    Alex Griswold, Communications Campaign Manager, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected]

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  • A new Utah law has caused the University of Utah to severely limit DEI initiatives on campus, in a case study of what might happen in other states

    A new Utah law has caused the University of Utah to severely limit DEI initiatives on campus, in a case study of what might happen in other states

    SALT LAKE CITY — Nineteen-year-old Nevaeh Parker spent the fall semester at the University of Utah trying to figure out how to lead a student group that had been undercut overnight by matters far beyond student control.

    Parker, the president of the Black Student Union, feared that a new Utah law banning diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at public colleges had sent a message to students from historically marginalized groups that they aren’t valued on campus. So this spring, while juggling 18 credit hours, an internship, a role in student government and waiting tables at a local cafe, she is doing everything in her power to change that message.

    Because the university cut off support for the BSU — as well as groups for Asian American and for Pacific Islander students — Parker is organizing the BSU’s monthly meetings on a bare-bones budget that comes from student government funding for hundreds of clubs. She often drives to pick up the meeting’s pizza to avoid wasting those precious dollars on delivery fees. And she’s helping organize large community events that can help Black, Asian and Latino students build relationships with each other and connect with people working in Salt Lake City for mentorship and professional networking opportunities.

    Nineteen-year-old University of Utah student Nevaeh Parker is working hard to keep the Black Student Union going after the organization lost financial support.  Credit: Image provided by Duncan Allen

    “Sometimes that means I’m sacrificing my grades, my personal time, my family,” Parker, a sophomore, said. “It makes it harder to succeed and achieve the things I want to achieve.”

    But she’s dedicated to keeping the BSU going because it means so much to her fellow Black students. She said several of her peers have told her they don’t feel they have a place on campus and are considering transferring or dropping out.

    Utah’s law arose from a conservative view that DEI initiatives promote different treatment of students based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. House Bill 261, known as “Equal Opportunity Initiatives,” which took effect last July, broadly banished DEI efforts and prohibited institutions or their representatives speaking about related topics at public colleges and government agencies. Violators risk losing state funding.

    Now President Donald Trump has set out to squelch DEI work across the federal government and in schools, colleges and businesses everywhere, through DEI-related executive orders and a recent “Dear Colleague” letter. As more states decide to banish DEI, Utah’s campus may represent what’s to come nationwide.

    Related: Interested in more news about colleges and universities? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.

    Because of the new state law, the university last year closed the Black Cultural Center, the Center for Equity and Student Belonging, the LGBT Resource Center and the Women’s Resource Center – in addition to making funding cuts to the student affinity groups.

    In place of these centers, the university opened a new Center for Community and Cultural Engagement, to offer programming for education, celebration and awareness of different identity and cultural groups, and a new Center for Student Access and Resources, to offer practical support services like counseling to all students, regardless of identity.

    For many students, the changes may have gone unnoticed. Utah’s undergraduate population is about 63 percent white. Black students are about 1 percent, Asian students about 8 percent and Hispanic students about 14 percent of the student body. Gender identity and sexuality among students is not tracked.

    For others, however, the university’s racial composition makes the support of the centers that were eliminated that much more significant.

     In response to a new state law that broadly banned diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, the University of Utah closed its Center for Equity and Student Belonging, the Black Cultural Center, the Women’s Resource Center and the LGBT Resource Center. Credit: Olivia Sanchez/The Hechinger Report

    Some — like Parker — have worked to replace what was lost. For example, a group of queer and transgender students formed a student-run Pride Center, with support from the local Utah Pride Center. A few days a week, they set up camp in a study room in the library. They bring in pride flags, informational fliers and rainbow stickers to distribute around the room, and sit at a big table in case other students come looking for a space to study or spend time with friends.

    Lori McDonald, the university’s vice president of student affairs, said so far, her staff has not seen as many students spending time in the two new centers as they did when that space was the Women’s Resource Center and the LGBT Resource Center, for example.

    “I still hear from students who are grieving the loss of the centers that they felt such ownership of and comfort with,” McDonald said. “I expected that there would still be frustration with the situation, but yet still carrying on and finding new things.”

    One of the Utah bill’s co-sponsors was Katy Hall, a Republican state representative. In an email, she said she wanted to ensure that support services were available to all students and that barriers to academic success were removed.

    “My aim was to take the politics out of it and move forward with helping students and Utahns to focus on equal treatment under the law for all,” Hall said. “Long term, I hope that students who benefitted from these centers in the past know that the expectation is that they will still be able to receive services and support that they need.”

    The law allows Utah colleges to operate cultural centers, so long as they offer only “cultural education, celebration, engagement, and awareness to provide opportunities for all students to learn with and from one another,” according to guidance from the Utah System of Higher Education.

    Given the anti-DEI orders coming from the White House and the mandate from the Department of Education earlier this month calling for the elimination of any racial preferences, McDonald said, “This does seem to be a time that higher education will receive more direction on what can and cannot be done.”

    But because the University of Utah has already had to make so many changes, she thinks that the university will be able to carry on with the centers and programs it now offers for all students.

    Related: Facing legal threats, colleges back off race-based programs

    Research has shown that a sense of belonging at college contributes to improved engagement in class and campus activities and to retaining students until they graduate. 

    “When we take away critical supports that we know have been so instrumental in student engagement and retention, we are not delivering on our promise to ensure student success,” said Royel M. Johnson, director of the national assessment of collegiate campus climates at the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center.

    Creating an equitable and inclusive environment requires recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to supporting students, said Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. A student who grew up poor may not have had the same opportunities in preparing for college as a student from a wealthy or middle-class family. Students from some minority groups or those who are the first in their family to go to college may not understand how to get the support they need.

    “This should not be a situation where our students arrive on campus and are expected to sink or swim,” she said.

    Student Andy Whipple wears a beaded bracelet made at a “Fab Friday” event hosted by the LGBT Resource Center at the University of Utah. The LGBT Resource Center was closed recently to comply with a new state law that limits diversity, equity and inclusion work. Credit: Olivia Sanchez/The Hechinger Report

    Kirstin Maanum is the director of the new Center for Student Access and Resources; it administers scholarships and guidance previously offered by the now-closed centers. She formerly served as the director of the Women’s Resource Center.

    “Students have worked really hard to figure out where their place is and try to get connected,” Maanum said. “It’s on us to be telling students what we offer and even in some cases, what we don’t, and connecting them to places that do offer what they’re looking for.”

    That has been difficult, she said, because the changeover happened so quickly, even though some staffers from the closed centers were reassigned to the new centers. (Others were reassigned elsewhere.)

    “It was a heavy lift,” Maanum said. “We didn’t really get a chance to pause until this fall. We did a retreat at the end of October and it was the first time I felt like we were able to really reflect on how things were going and essentially do some grief work and team building.”

    Before the new state law, the cultural, social and political activities of various student affinity groups used to be financed by the university — up to $11,000 per group per year — but that money was eliminated because it came from the Center for Equity and Student Belonging, which closed. The groups could have retained some financial support from the university if they agreed to avoid speaking about certain topics considered political and to explicitly welcome all students, not just those who shared their race, ethnicity or other personal identity characteristics, according to McDonald. Otherwise, the student groups are left to fundraise and petition the student government for funding alongside hundreds of other clubs.

    Related: Tracking Trump — a week-by-week look at his actions on education

    Parker said the restrictions on speech felt impossible for the BSU, which often discusses racism and the way bias and discrimination affect students. She said, “Those things are not political, those things are real, and they impact the way students are able to perform on campus.”

    She added: “I feel as though me living in this black body automatically makes myself and my existence here political, I feel like it makes my existence here debatable and questioned. I feel like every single day I’m having to prove myself extra.”

    In October, she and other leaders of the Black Student Union decided to forgo being sponsored by the university, which had enabled traditional activities such as roller skating nights, a Jollof rice cook-off (which was a chance to engage with different cultures, students said) and speaker forums.

    Alex Tokita, a senior who is the president of the Asian American Student Association, said his group did the same. To maintain their relationship with the university by complying with the law, Tokita said, was “bonkers.”

     Alex Tokita, a senior at the University of Utah, is the president of the Asian American Student Association. The organization chose to forgo university sponsorship because it did not want to comply with a new state law that restricts speech on certain topics. Credit: Olivia Sanchez/The Hechinger Report

    Tokita said it doesn’t make sense for the university to host events in observation of historical figures and moments that represent the struggle of marginalized people without being able to discuss things like racial privilege or implicit bias.

    “It’s frustrating to me that we can have an MLK Jr. Day, but we can’t talk about implicit bias,” Tokita said. “We can’t talk about critical race theory, bias, implicit bias.” 

    As a student, Tokita can use these words and discuss these concepts. But he couldn’t if he were speaking on behalf of a university-sponsored organization.

    LeiLoni Allan-McLaughlin, of the new Center for Community and Cultural Engagement, said that some students believe they must comply with the law even if they are not representing the university or participating in sponsored groups.

    “We’ve been having to continually inform them, ‘Yes, you can use those words. We cannot,’” Allan-McLaughlin said. “That’s been a roadblock for our office and for the students, because these are things that they’re studying so they need to use those words in their research, but also to advocate for each other and themselves.”

    Related: Cutting race-based scholarships blocks path to college, students say

    Last fall, Allan-McLaughlin’s center hosted an event around the time of National Coming Out Day, in October, with a screening of “Paris Is Burning,” a film about trans women and drag queens in New York City in the 1980s. Afterward, two staff members led a discussion with the students who attended. They prefaced the discussion with a disclaimer, saying that they were not speaking on behalf of the university.

    Center staffers also set up an interactive exhibit in honor of National Coming Out Day, where students could write their experiences on colorful notecards and pin them on a bulletin board; created an altar for students to observe Día de los Muertos, in early November, and held an event to celebrate indigenous art. So far this semester, the center has hosted several events in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month, including an educational panel, a march and a pop-up library event.

    Such events may add value to the campus experience overall, but students from groups that aren’t well represented on campus argue that those events do not make up for the loss of dedicated spaces to spend time with other students of similar backgrounds.

     Sophomore Juniper Nilsson looks at a National Coming Out Day exhibit in the student union at the University of Utah. The exhibit was set up by the new Center for Community and Cultural Engagement. Credit: Olivia Sanchez/The Hechinger Report

    For Taylor White, a recent graduate with a degree in psychology, connecting with fellow Black students through BSU events was, “honestly, the biggest relief of my life.” At the Black Cultural Center, she said, students could talk about what it was like to be the only Black person in their classes or to be Black in other predominantly white spaces. She said without the support of other Black students, she’s not sure she would have been able to finish her degree. 

    Nnenna Eke-Ukoh, a 2024 graduate who is now pursuing a master’s in higher educational leadership at nearby Weber State University, said it feels like the new Center for Community and Cultural Engagement at her alma mater is “lumping all the people of color together.”

    “We’re not all the same,” Eke-Ukoh said, “and we have all different struggles, and so it’s not going to be helpful.”

    Contact staff writer Olivia Sanchez at 212-678-8402 or [email protected].

    This story about campus DEI initiatives was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • SCOTUS to hear case on LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum opt-outs

    SCOTUS to hear case on LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum opt-outs

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    The U.S. Supreme Court announced Friday it will hear Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case that would determine whether school districts violate parents’ First Amendment religious rights when they don’t provide notice or a way to opt children out of curriculum related to gender and sexuality.

    The case was brought against Maryland’s Montgomery County Board of Education by a group of Christian and Muslim parents in reaction to a pre-K-5 LGBTQ+-inclusive language arts curriculum. With more than 159,000 students and 211 schools, Montgomery County Public Schools is Maryland’s largest school district.

    Though the school board initially offered parents a way to opt their children out of the curriculum, it later walked that policy back because “individual schools could not accommodate the growing number of opt out requests without causing significant disruptions to the classroom environment.” The board also attributed the reversal to the “unworkable burdens” that high opt-out volumes put on educators.

    In their Sept. 12 petition to the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs argued that parents’ ability to raise their children in accordance with their beliefs is particularly important for the pre-K-5 age group and particularly those with special needs “who are highly impressionable and instinctively trusting of authority figures like teachers.”

    The court is expected to hear the case in the spring.

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