A Catholic law firm is suing a school district in New Jersey, saying its policy of concealing a child’s gender transition from their parents is a violation of their rights.
The Thomas More Society, on behalf of Moms for Liberty, filed suit in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey against the School District of the Chathams Board of Education in late August. About 4,000 students attend the six schools across the district, which is located in Morris County, New Jersey.
Policy 5145.7, said an August 26 press release from the Thomas More Society, allows school staff to hide a child’s gender transition from their parents, as well as compels a teacher to use the student’s “preferred pronouns” and “gender identity” at school, including a new chosen name if applicable. Parents are not notified if their child adopts a new name or identity.
This policy is still in place despite recent Supreme Court decisions affirming a parent’s right to guide their children’s upbringing, said the Thomas More Society. In the March 2026 ruling in the case Mirabelli v Bonta, the Supreme Court found that a California school’s policy concealing a gender transition or a change in preferred pronoun usage from parents was likely a violation of their rights.
Similarly, in 2025, the Supreme Court ruled in Mahmoud v Taylor that parents of elementary school-age children have a right to opt out of LGBTQ+ curriculum.
“When Thomas More Society prevailed at the Supreme Court, we made a promise: any school board or district that kept hiding a child’s so-called ‘gender transition’ from parents, or that punished kids for refusing to bow down to an ideology they don’t believe, would be held accountable,” said Christopher Ferrara, senior counsel at Thomas More Society, in a statement.
The president of the Chathams Board of Education said in June 2026 that “the United States Supreme Court decision, Mirabelli, is not binding on public school districts in New Jersey”, which the Thomas More Society claims is “legally false”.
The district’s policy also permitted “mixed-sex participation in sports, locker rooms and changing facilities based solely on a student’s self-declared gender identity, without advance notice to parents”, said the release.
Further, students who did not use a classmate’s chosen pronouns or name on or off school campus were subject to disciplinary procedures for “harassment, intimidation, or bullying”, and students could be referred to “pro-LGBTQ” organisations outside of school without parental notice, says the Thomas More Society.
Moms for Liberty, a conservative non-profit, is asking the court to declare the district’s policy unconstitutional.
“Parents are the primary educators and caregivers of their children, not school boards, not counsellors and not ideologues pushing secret gender transitions behind closed doors,” said Tina Descovich, CEO and co-founder of Moms for Liberty.
She continued: “The Chathams Board of Education’s open defiance of the Supreme Court’s clear rulings in Mirabelli and Mahmoud is an assault on the constitutional rights of every family in that district. Moms for Liberty will not stand by while schools hide life-altering decisions from parents or persuade children to affirm an ideology that violates their conscience and faith.”
