Appeals court to decide Colorado students’ privacy case

A looming appeals court ruling could impact parents’ ability to exclude their children from sharing a bed with transgender students on school trips. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals must affirm that parents, and not school officials, have the right to direct the upbringing of their children, said Serena Wailes in a press conference Tuesday. On an overnight school trip in 2023, Wailes’ 11-year-old daughter was assigned to share a bed with a male student who identified as a female.

The Waileses, along with two other families and their children, sued Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado over its policy allowing such rooming assignments to occur. The families argued before the 10th Circuit earlier this week, contending that the policy stripped the parents of their constitutional rights and the students’ right to privacy. 

The families want the district to respect their religious beliefs that their children shouldn’t be roomed with students of the opposite sex, said Noel Sterett, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the families. No school district should make consequential decisions about a child’s care, he said. 

What happened during oral arguments? The school district doesn’t maintain a list of which students are transgender, said Eric Olsen, an attorney representing Jefferson County Public Schools. It didn’t know of the student’s status when rooms were assigned in the Wailes case. Judge Nancy Moritz pressed Olsen on whether the district’s policy stigmatizes students on the basis of religion.

Sterett told the judges the families don’t want the policy to be overturned. Instead, they want to be informed before their children are roomed with the opposite sex and have the chance to decline this, he said. 

How did the policy affect the other two families? Bret and Susanne Roller said the policy allowed a female counselor who identified as “non-binary” to stay in the same cabin where their sixth-grade son slept during a school camp. The counselor also monitored his hot water use while he showered. 

Rob and Jade Perlman, who are also party to the lawsuit, said their daughter will not risk sharing a room with a boy after she was sexually harassed at a district middle school. 

A federal district court dismissed their case in August, stating that the families lacked standing as they could have coordinated different accommodations with the school district. However, the families said that they made accommodation requests based on their religious beliefs, but school officials declined to grant the requests. 

Dig deeper: Read my story and interview with the Wailes family about the impact this policy had on their daughter.