The majority opinion cited a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, stating that Olentangy school district "has fallen far short of meeting this demanding standard. It introduced no evidence that the use of biological pronouns would disrupt school functions or qualify as harassment under Ohio law.
"Our society continues to debate whether biological pronouns are appropriate or offensive — just as it continues to debate many other issues surrounding transgender rights," the majority opinion noted. "The school district may not skew this debate by forcing one side to change the way it conveys its message or by compelling it to express a different view."
The decision emphasized, however, that "nothing we say here forecloses the district from enforcing its anti-harassment policies against the abuse of transgender students just as it enforces those policies against the abuse of all other students."
The original lawsuit was filed in May 2024 by Parents Defending Education, a Virginia-based conservative nonprofit, on behalf of four parents in the district. The organization opposes what it calls "ideologically driven curriculum with a concerning and often divisive emphasis on students’ group identities: race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender."
In February 2023, a concerned parent emailed Olentangy officials about the district's transgenderpolicies, noting that the parent has a “devoutly Christian child” who believes that only “two biologicalgenders” exist (“male/female”) “and that those genders are decided at conception by God." The parent asked whether Olentangy’s policies would force students “to use the pronouns that a transgender child identifies with or be subject to reprimand from the district if they refuse to do so," the opinion notes.
A few days later, the school district’s legal counsel responded on behalf of the district, explaining that Olentangy’s anti-harassment policy “prohibits discrimination and harassment based upon a student’s sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity.” She added: “A student purposefully referring to another student by using gendered language they know is contrary to the other student’s identity would be an example of discrimination under Board Policy.”
In a later email, the district's counsel suggested that district administrators would happily discuss “accommodations to avoid using pronouns where doing so would be contrary to [a child’s] religious beliefs."
The parent who sent the email belonged to Defending Education, an organization that describes itself as “nationwide, grassroots membership organization whose members are primarily parents of school-aged children.” At least three other parents of children in the district are also members of the organization, which brought the suit on their behalf.
The lawsuit says these parents and their children have “no ill-will toward children or adults who identify as transgender or nonbinary, but believe that people are born 'either male or female and that a child cannot ‘transition’ from one sex to another.'”
The children want “to use pronouns that are consistent with a classmate’s biological sex, rather than the classmate’s ‘preferred pronouns’ ... the pronouns that the classmate has decided reflect the classmate’s gender identity.” To do otherwise, they argue, "would violate their scientific and religious beliefs if they were to ‘affirm’ that a biologically female classmate is actually a male — or vice versa — or that a classmate is ‘nonbinary’ and neither male nor female.”
The suit contends the children have self-censored themselves for fear that the school district will punish them. The parents are identified as A,B,C, and D so as not to reveal their identities "because they worry that school officials or members of the broader community will retaliate against them for their beliefs."
So Parents Defending Education sued the Olentangy school board and district administrators, arguing that the district's policy violates students' rights under the First and 14th amendments. The group claims the policies require students to affirm the idea that gender is fluid, contrary to their deeply held religious beliefs.
In its legal filing, the group also said the policies are too broad because they apply to students’ conduct on their cellphones or other devices while they are not at school.
Parents Defending Education was joined in the lawsuit by numerous other conservative, religious and free speech rights groups as well as the ACLU of Ohio Foundation, and amicus (friend of the court) filings by the Ohio Attorney General's office and others.
U.S. District Court Judge Algenon Marbley of the Southern District of Ohio in Columbus rejected the lawsuit and a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court decision upheld Marbley's ruling.
Defending Education then appealed again to the entire 6th Circuit Court en banc.
Olentangy School District officials could not be reached for comment on the ruling. The district is the fourth largest public school district in Ohio
