CV NEWS FEED // This week the judges of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments over an Ohio school’s policy mandating the use of LGBT pronouns.
The Olentangy Local School District near Columbus, Ohio, in 2023 adopted a policy requiring students to use classmates’ preferred pronouns — even off-campus and online — and forbidding any language that could be perceived as “offensive,” “dehumanizing,” or “unwanted” in relation to “transgender” identity, according to the Manhattan Institute.
The organization Parents Defending Education (PDE) filed the lawsuit against the Olentangy Local School District Board of Education with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in May 2023, the American Civil Liberties Union reports.
The plaintiff argues that the policy not only violates students’ First Amendment rights by compelling them to affirm beliefs they may not hold but also undermines the authority of parents to form their children in faith and moral reasoning, Courthouse News Service reports.
In July 2024, a three-judge panel denied PDE’s request for a preliminary injunction, but that decision has been vacated pending a full court review, Courthouse News Service adds. A ruling is expected later this year, though no timetable has been announced.
During the Sixth Circuit hearing on March 19, PDE’s attorney Cam Davis argued, “The district is free to express a viewpoint on gender identity, but is not free to punish students who dissent from that viewpoint.”
He warned the court that the school district is “hurting students by teaching them that different viewpoints should be punished.”
Several judges at the hearing raised questions about the scope and necessity of the school’s policy.
Judge Chad Readler, a Trump appointee, summed up the general skepticism: “The 17 of us likely won’t agree on the outcome of this case,” he said, according to Courthouse News Service. “But we all agree bullying is bad. Why do you need a specific policy for pronouns?”
Judge Amul Thapar, also a Trump appointee, pressed the school district’s attorney, Jaime Santos, for specific evidence of “misgendering” posing a significant disruption in students’ educations.
Santos replied that while studies show misgendering can be harmful, she conceded, “I don’t know about particular instances at Olentangy.”
Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, appointed by George W. Bush, expressed concern about labeling dissenting speech as harassment.
“That’s an astonishing concept to me—that the use of biological pronouns could be considered harassment,” Sutton stated.
Also during the hearing, Ohio Solicitor General Elliot Gaiser, speaking for Ohio and 22 other states that filed an amici curiae brief in support of the plaintiff, defended the rights of students to act according to sincerely held religious beliefs—particularly regarding biological sex and gender.
“Schools cannot treat one side of the debate as harassment or silence dissenters by labeling them bullies,” he told the court.
Gaiser emphasized that students who use biological pronouns out of religious conviction are not engaging in bullying but are instead expressing faith-based truths respectfully and peacefully.
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