For Immediate Release:
August 26, 2025
For press inquiries only, contact:
Amanda Priest (334) 322-5694
William Califf (334) 604-3230
(Montgomery, Ala) – Attorney General Steve Marshall joined a 22-state coalition that filed a brief in the U.S Supreme Court supporting parental rights and in opposition to a Massachusetts school district’s policy that allows the “social transitioning” of children without parental consent. The law as it stands strips parents of their longstanding and fundamental right to direct the care and upbringing of their children.
The case, Foote v. Ludlow School Committee, involves Ludlow Public School in Massachusetts and parents Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri. The school secretly promoted “social transitioning”— actively subverting the parents’ requests for school personnel to keep parents informed about their children and calling their two children by new names and pronouns. The school counselor even had secret discussions with the students and suggested that they weren’t safe with their parents.
The coalition’s brief asks the Supreme Court to grant review of the case and reverse the flawed First Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that upheld the 2023 district court’s decision in favor of the school’s policy.
“Parents do not surrender their constitutional rights when they send their children to public school. Nor should government bureaucrats be allowed to hide life-altering decisions from mothers and fathers,” Attorney General Marshall said. “These actions are especially appalling in light of what Alabama uncovered about the medical industry and radical advocacy groups working to medicalize children. The Supreme Court must make clear for once and for all that parents—not schools with woke ideological agendas—have the ultimate authority over their children.”
The appeals court erred in deciding that parents’ rights disappeared once they decide to place their children in public schools. The court also minimized concerns over gender transition because they were wrongly thought not to cause health issues. The court also went too far in ruling that schools can even deceive parents when making decisions on their behalf.
In the brief, the attorneys general argue the First Circuit’s decision should be reversed because hundreds of years of tradition and history recognize the importance of a parent’s rights to direct the care and upbringing of their children, and schools cannot make decisions rooted in parental power without parental consent. Parental rights are constitutionally protected across each state and cannot be overridden when guiding a child’s health or education. The Supreme Court has also continued to recognize those rights under law.
Rather than make decisions for parents and their children, schools have a duty to support parents, not supersede and undermine their direction. Policies as concerning as Ludlow’s set a dangerous precedent in family decision making and violate the trust between parents and schools while violating parental rights.
Attorneys general from West Virgina, Florida, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and Guam also joined the brief led by Montana.
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