Parents Defending Education Files Petition for Rehearing En Banc in Olentangy Local School District Lawsuit

“[P]ronouns matter.” Maj.Op.13. For males who identify as female, they hear she/her pronouns as “affirming” that they’re really female. Maj.Op.13. But for those who think “sex cannot be changed,” that same affirmation would violate their deep convictions. Meriwether v. Hartop, 992 F.3d 492, 508 (6th Cir. 2021).

This circuit has rightly required this “‘struggle over the social control of language’” to be fought with persuasion, not coercion. Id. When a recent Title IX rule ordered schools to punish students who “refus[e] to use a student’s preferred pronoun,” “[a]ll three members” of the panel deemed it likely illegal. Tennessee v. Cardona, 2024 WL 3453880, at *1, *3 (July 17). And when a university ordered a professor to use students’ preferred pronouns, this Court’s landmark decision in Meriwether said the school “flouted” the First Amendment. 992 F.3d at 511.

No more. Under the panel’s decision, public schools can now force children to use other students’ preferred pronouns. Its reasoning, per Judge Batchelder’s dissent, “confin[es Meriwether] to its facts” and “creates a circuit split.” Dissent.38, 55. And its holding will harm all parents, who have no right to schools where children aren’t forced to mouth the government’s latest orthodoxy on sex and gender.

The full Court should rehear the following question “of significant public concern,” Dissent.27:

Whether the challenged public-school policies, which require students to use
other students’ “preferred pronouns,” violate the First Amendment.