A New Jersey school district is being sued for allowing students to change their names and gender identities in school records without telling their parents. The case centers on an injunction, a court order that temporarily blocks a policy while judges decide its legality, that the Supreme Court granted in March in Mirabelli v. Bonta against California state rules that kept students' gender identities hidden from families.
The lawsuit was filed August 24 against the School District of the Chathams. Under the district's policy, students may change their name in official records and use bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their stated gender identity. A school guidance counselor decides, in the policy's own language, "whether, and to what extent" parents are informed. Christopher Ferrara, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society and the attorney who filed the suit, told Fox News Digital that Mirabelli, along with a Third Circuit decision running along the same lines, established that parents have legal standing, meaning the right to bring a case before a court, to challenge policies like this one. The court determined parents hold that right whether or not their own child is currently seeking a transition, Ferrara said, because the policy targets parents by design: it names information the school will keep from them.
What the lawsuit claims
The plaintiffs include Moms for Liberty, Moms for America, and two anonymous parents of elementary school-aged daughters. They accuse the district of violating First Amendment protections covering free speech and religious liberty, along with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The suit also cites Mahmoud v. Taylor, a separate Supreme Court ruling that affirmed parents' right to remove their children from LGBT-centered lessons.
Ferrara told Fox News Digital that the policy's reach extends to students who are not seeking a transition, since the rule allows any student who identifies differently from their birth sex to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their stated identity.
Tina Descovich, CEO and founder of Moms for Liberty, told Fox News Digital that students who refuse to use a classmate's preferred name or pronoun could face suspension under the district's code of conduct, even for a single accidental slip.
At a June 15, 2026, school board meeting, Ann Ciccarelli, president of the Chatham School District Board of Education, said the district was not legally bound by Mirabelli and was instead required to follow New Jersey Department of Education guidance issued in 2018 on transgender students. New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin has separately acknowledged that Policy 5756, the state directive at issue, is not mandatory.
Ferrara told Fox News Digital that parents who have spoken publicly against the policy have faced threats and intimidation since doing so. One family has had police security stationed outside their home.