Supreme Court Decision On California Gender Policy Highlights Media Divide
Whenever the U.S. Supreme Court releases important decisions, the wild world of Internet journalism immediately delivers radically different takes on what happened.
That was certainly true with the decision that served as the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast, in which host Todd Wilken and I discussed coverage of the high court’s 6-3 ruling (click for text of the decision) to block a California law banning the automatic notification of parents if their child changes his or her gender identification in a public school.
What was the strategic issue in this decision and who would it impact the most? Different publications had different answers and, obviously, this affected the content of the coverage.
Consider these two headlines: Which is from Baptist Press, the news voice of the Southern Baptist Convention, and which is from The Advocate, the nation’s best known LGBTQ+ news source?
No. 1: “Conservative Supreme Court justices curb California’s effort to shield transgender students from forced outing.”
No. 2: “Supreme Court pauses California law that endangers parental rights.”
It’s easy to spot the way the case is being framed in the coverage for two radically different groups of readers, with radically different beliefs on the moral, cultural and legal issues involved. The first story is from The Advocate and the second is from Baptist Press. One side stresses whether schools will “out” students, potentially leading to harm, while the other stresses whether officials can “hide” efforts to help students (even in elementary grades) change their gender identities.
This leads to a tougher question in today’s journalism marketplace: What newsroom used this third headline as the framework for its coverage of this controversial SCOTUS decision?
No. 3: “Supreme Court blocks California policies intended to protect transgender students.”
That headline didn’t come from a niche publication for activists. Instead, it ran at CNN.com.
Still, like The Advocate, CNN framed this story in terms of individual rights (even for minors) linked to gender identity and sexual liberation, as opposed to the legal rights of parents, including those making religious-liberty claims based on the First Amendment. Here is the top of the CNN report:
The Supreme Court on Monday blocked a California education policy that restricts teachers from informing parents about a student’s gender expression, pausing an approach the state says is intended to protect trans minors from rejection and abuse at home.
The emergency case raised fundamental questions about whether parents have a right to know their child is going through a gender transition at school, and whether districts have an obligation to respect a student’s privacy wishes — particularly if disclosure could lead to abuse at home. The Supreme Court has repeatedly been asked to resolve that tension on its merits docket and, so far, has declined to do so.
“We conclude that the parents who seek religious exemptions are likely to succeed on the merits of their Free Exercise Clause claim,” the court said in an unsigned order.
“The parents who assert a free exercise claim have sincere religious beliefs about sex and gender, and they feel a religious obligation to raise their children in accordance with those beliefs,” the court wrote. “California’s policies violate those beliefs.”
It’s interesting to note that the CNN report, while quoting references to “religious exemptions” and “free exercise claims,” never uses this important term — “First Amendment.” The same was true with The Advocate.
The top of the Baptist Press report, on the other hand, noted:
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a win for parental rights Monday (March 2) when it blocked, for now, a California state law that bans automatic notification of parents if their child changes pronouns or gender expression at school.
A federal judge had blocked the law last month, claiming it harmed potentially vulnerable students as well as their parents “by depriving them of the long-recognized Fourteenth Amendment right to care, guide, and make healthcare decisions for their children, and by substantially burdening many parents’ First Amendment right to train their children in their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
When recording the podcast, I noted that it would have only taken a few more words to broaden the CNN headline in a way that fit the actual content of the newsroom’s report. I suggested this headline: “Supreme Court blocks California policies intended to protect transgender students from their parents.”
For another point of view on that issue, consider this X tweet by New York Times columnist David French, who has decades of legal experience in religious-liberty cases based on the First Amendment. French noted:
This is absolutely the correct case. The idea that a school could withhold such key information about a child from the child’s parents (in the absence of evidence of abuse) was ludicrously unconstitutional from the beginning.
Journalists doing follow-up reporting will, I am convinced, need to ask experts on the moral and cultural left and right to debate whether California officials are accurate in their claims that “outing” minor children would frequently lead to abuse and trauma at home — thus justifying limits on the legal rights of parents.
Consider this passage in the New York Times report:
California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, countered that the challengers had misconstrued state law and policy. He told the court in a filing that California’s policies did not prohibit the disclosure of information about students’ gender identities, and in some cases required disclosure when there was a risk of serious harm to the student.
But for many students, he wrote, “the consequences of compelling the disclosure of confidential information about their gender identity would be irreversible.”
Here are some other important questions linked to this religious, moral, cultural, political and legal debate.
— What happened to California public-school teachers who, against the wishes of education leaders, attempted to tell parents about students or their advisors seeking changed pronouns, names and other signs of gender transitions? What were the consequences for their work and careers?
— When defining “abuse,” do California officials consider parents “abusive” if they attempt to teach and enforce religious doctrines and traditions taught in specific faiths, such as traditional forms of Judaism, Islam and Christianity?
— Polls show that most American adults (percentages vary from poll to poll) oppose school leaders “hiding” from parents any signs that their children are taking steps to change their gender identities. What about the rights of parents without strong or consistent religious beliefs on these matters? What about their “parental rights”?
— If Gov. Gavin Newsom of California is the early front runner among contenders to become the Democratic Party presidential nominee, what are some New York Post headlines based on this quotation, from his spokeswoman, about the SCOTUS ruling?
“Teachers should be focused on teaching — not forced to be gender cops. Today’s shadow docket ruling by the Supreme Court undermines student privacy and the ability to learn in a safe and supportive classroom, free from discrimination based on gender identity.”
Stay tuned. This story is not over. Far from it.
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