{"id":253686,"date":"2026-04-06T04:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T04:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/253686\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T04:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T04:46:08","slug":"california-to-pay-4-5m-after-losing-parental-secrecy-law-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/253686\/","title":{"rendered":"California to pay $4.5M after losing parental secrecy law case"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ryan Foley<\/a>, Christian Post Reporter Monday, April 06, 2026\"studio-laska\/iStock\"studio-laska\/iStock<\/p>\n

California has been ordered to pay $4.5 million after losing its attempt to defend a state law prohibiting school officials from informing parents about their children\u2019s gender dysphoria.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an order<\/a> published Monday, Judge Roger Benitez of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California granted the request of several California teachers and parents for more than $4.5 million in attorneys\u2019 fees following their victory in a lawsuit challenging the state\u2019s policy prohibiting schools from informing parents if their child wishes to identify as a member of the opposite sex.<\/p>\n

Benitez sided with the plaintiffs in a ruling<\/a> issued late last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Benitez\u2019s decision, the plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Last month, the justices ruled<\/a> 6-3 that Benitez\u2019s decision could remain in effect, thereby invalidating the 2024 California law<\/a> at the center of the litigation.<\/p>\n

The law in question states that \u201c[A]n employee or a contractor of a school district, county office of education, charter school, or state special school for the blind or the deaf shall not be required to disclose any information related to a pupil\u2019s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other person without the pupil\u2019s consent unless otherwise required by state or federal law.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lawyers at the Thomas More Society, which represented the plaintiffs, reacted to Benitez\u2019s decision in a series of statements<\/a> published Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cA $4.5 million fee award sends an unmistakable message to state governments and school districts across the country: If you trample the constitutional rights of parents, you will pay for it \u2014 literally,\u201d said Thomas More Society Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation Peter Breen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia threw everything it had at this case. It lost at summary judgment, lost at the Supreme Court, and now Californians will foot the bill for their government officials\u2019 refusal to respect the fundamental rights of families,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paul Jonna, special counsel at the Thomas More Society and partner at LiMandri & Jonna LLP, praised the court\u2019s award as reflective of \u201cthe enormous amount of work it took to overcome a state government that tried to cut parents out of decisions about their own children\u2019s upbringing and well-being.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis order confirms that California\u2019s decision to trample parental rights was not only unconstitutional, but costly. Every school district and government official is now on notice and should ensure full compliance with the court\u2019s injunction,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A 2023 report<\/a> from the conservative activist organization Parents Defending Education states that more than 1,000 school districts across the United States had adopted policies that permit or advise personnel to withhold information from parents about their child’s desire to identify as trans or nonbinary.<\/p>\n

Efforts by schools to socially transition students without parental knowledge received national attention in February, when President Donald Trump highlighted the story<\/a> of Sage Blair during his State of the Union address.<\/p>\n

The president described how officials at the then-14-year-old girl\u2019s school declined to share Blair\u2019s intention to transition with her parents. The teenager later ran away from home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter she was found in a horrific situation in Maryland, a left-wing judge refused to return Sage to her parents because they did not immediately state that their daughter was their son,\u201d he said. \u201cSage was thrown into an all-boys state home and suffered terribly for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

After noting that Blair\u2019s gender dysphoria had subsided and that she was slated to attend Liberty University in the fall, Trump said \u201cit\u2019s going on all over,\u201d referring to efforts by schools to socially transition children without parental consent. \u201cSurely we can all agree: No state can be allowed to rip children from their parents\u2019 arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents\u2019 will.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must ban it, and we must ban it immediately,\u201d he concluded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Monday, April 06, 2026studio-laska\/iStock California has been ordered to pay $4.5 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,536,15,20987,22333,30886,40284],"class_list":{"0":"post-253686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-education","13":"tag-lgbt","14":"tag-parental-rights","15":"tag-thomas-more-society","16":"tag-transgender"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}