Exterior of the George C. Young Federal Building and Courthouse, in Orlando, which houses the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. – Photo: Carol M. Highsmith.
A federal judge has dismissed a second lawsuit challenging Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” law, also dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law for its restrictions on speech related to LGBTQ issues.
U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger, of the Middle District of Florida, a Trump appointee, dismissed a lawsuit brought by LGBTQ students, parents and their families, along with several civil rights groups, refusing to grant a preliminary injunction to block the law from being enforced. However, Berger did give the plaintiffs until Nov. 3 to file an amended lawsuit, reports The Associated Press.
The lawsuit, which names four different school boards as defendants, claims that the law infringes on LGBTQ students’ right to free speech and free expression, as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and deprives them of their rights to due process and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The plaintiffs include a same-sex couple and their two children, an opposite-sex couple and their four children, one of whom is nonbinary, and Will Larkins, an gay and nonbinary rising senior at Winter Park High School in Orange County, Florida, who was “investigated” and forcibly moved to another history class after giving a presentation in history class about the Stonewall Uprising.
But Berger claimed that the plaintiffs failed to show how the law — which bans lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K-3 and requires LGBTQ-related content to be “age-appropriate” in older grades — suppresses their free speech rights.
“Plaintiffs have not directed this Court to any fact that would lead a reasonable person to believe that the law prohibits students from discussing their families and vacations at school or even on a school assignment, or that it would prohibit a parent from attending a school function in a ‘Pride’ T-shirt or generally discussing their family structure in front of other people,” Berger wrote in her decision.
Addressing concerns expressed by the parents of a nonbinary middle school student that Florida’s newly enacted law would condone and encourage more bullying, Berger feigned sympathy, but added that “it is simply a fact of life that many middle school students will face the criticism and harsh judgment of their peers.”
“Indeed, middle school children bully and belittle their classmates for a whole host of reasons, all of which are unacceptable, and many of which have nothing to do with a classmate’s gender identity,” she continued.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs called Berger’s decision “wrong” and vowed not to stop fighting the law.
“The students and families at the heart of this case have experienced more bullying in the months since the law went into effect than ever before in their lives, but the court dismissed their experiences of bullying as ‘a fact of life,'” Kell Olson, a staff attorney for the LGBTQ legal advocacy group Lambda Legal, said in a statement. “The court’s decision defies decades of precedent establishing schools’ constitutional obligations to protect student speech, and to protect students from targeted bullying and harassment based on who they are.”
Last month, a Trump-appointed judge for the Northern District of Florida dismissed a similar challenge to the law, questioning their legal standing, and whether the plaintiffs had or would suffer injury under the law.
A report released in August by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, in conjunction with the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said that hateful references to gays, lesbians, and other LGBTQ people — including the now-infamous “groomer” narrative pushed by conservatives, including Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s official spokeswoman — surged online after lawmakers passed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. On Facebook and Instagram, 59 paid ads promoted the same anti-LGBTQ narrative, despite policies that allegedly prohibit hateful content on both platforms.
A federal judge in Virginia has ordered the Pentagon to restore books and curriculum removed from schools serving military families under the Trump administration's campaign to purge so-called "woke" content from the armed forces and related institutions.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Department of Defense in April on behalf of six military families with 12 children, arguing that officials at Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) schools violated the students' First Amendment right to receive information. The suit was filed in response to actions taken shortly after President Donald Trump's inauguration.
José Rolón, a gay father and popular social media influencer known as @nycgaydad, has filed a defamation lawsuit against right-wing commentator Stew Peters, who falsely accused him of "criminal sexual conduct" involving his three young children.
Rolón, who has more than 150,000 followers on Instagram and over 500,000 on TikTok, says he was barraged with death threats and vile messages after Peters attacked him online for sharing videos about his life as a single gay dad.
As reported by The Advocate, Rolón's legal team filed a five-count lawsuit in Kings County Supreme Court accusing Peters of defamation and bias-related intimidation under New York's Civil Rights Law, citing multiple false statements made against him.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that cisgender students may repeatedly and intentionally misgender transgender classmates, invalidating an Ohio school district's policies that sought to stop the practice.
In a 10-7 decision, the court found that Olentangy Local School District's prohibition on using "gendered language they know is contrary to the other student's identity," including pronouns and honorifics, infringes on the rights of students who believe there are only two genders.
The challenged policies include an anti-harassment rule prohibiting "discriminatory harassment" or bullying based on gender identity and other protected traits that "places a student or school employee in reasonable fear of harm," interferes with education or work, or disrupts school operations, according to The Associated Press.
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