District policies violate students’ First Amendment rights by chilling students’ speech rights, compelling students to affirm beliefs about sex and gender that are contrary to their own deeply held beliefs, and violating parents’ Fourteenth Amendment rights through the district’s efforts to restrict speech off school grounds and in families’ homes.
Case Details
Case Status
Ruling in Favor of Defending Ed
Location
Ohio
Date Filed
May 11, 2023
UPDATE: On November 6, 2025, Defending Education won its long-running case against Ohio’s Olentangy Local School District. The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued the strongest ruling protecting students’ First Amendment rights since the 1960s. Other people challenging similar policies can now rely on it.
On May 15, 2026, the court entered a consent decree, a court-approved agreement that orders the district not to enforce the “discriminatory language” and “harassment” rules in its Code of Conduct against any student who refuses to use required “preferred pronouns.” The district must also train all employees at the start of the next school year on how to protect students’ free speech rights.
On May 11, 2023, Parents Defending Education (PDE) sued Ohio’s Olentangy Local School District in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. PDE argued the district’s policies violate students’ First Amendment rights by forcing them to affirm beliefs about sex and gender that go against their own. PDE also argued the policies violate parents’ Fourteenth Amendment rights by policing speech off school grounds and inside families’ homes.
According to the lawsuit:
- Students must use “preferred” pronouns. The district’s policies and Student Code of Conduct list “transgender identity” as a protected group and require students to use other students’ “preferred” pronouns. Students who don’t can face punishment, including suspension and expulsion.
- Parents are left out. The district uses “Gender Identity Support Plans” for students without their parents’ consent. Its “Transgender Guidelines” tell staff to hide a student’s gender identity and “preferred pronouns” from parents unless the student agrees.
- Only one view is welcome. The district puts “gender identity” ahead of other issues, encourages teachers to ask students about their gender identity in class, fills K-12 classrooms and hallways with flags and posters about gender identity and sexual orientation, and promotes days like “International Pronouns Day.”
“Olentangy’s ‘harassment’ policies show a deep contempt for the constitutional rights of its students and families,” said Parents Defending Education Vice President Caroline Moore. “Public schools cannot force students to speak in a way that supports a viewpoint contrary to their deeply held beliefs— nor may schools follow students home to police their speech at all hours of the day on their personal devices. But Olentangy has enacted a series of overbroad ‘Anti-Harassment’ policies under the guise of ‘inclusivity’ that flout basic constitutional rights both in and outside of the classroom.”
PDE asked the court to declare that the district’s “harassment” rules violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments. It also asked the court to stop the district from enforcing those rules, from punishing speech about gender identity or forcing students to affirm someone else’s gender identity, and from punishing students for speech off school grounds that isn’t part of a school activity.
Read the complaint below: