Parents Defending Education Files Reply Brief in En Banc in Olentangy Local School District Lawsuit

Though Olentangy wants to do right by the law and its students, its pronoun policies do wrong by both. Olentangy invokes Title IX. OSD-Br. (Doc.204-1) 18. But the regulation that required preferred pronouns has been vacated, Tennessee v. Cardona, 2025 WL 63795 (E.D. Ky.), and the government now respects students’ “freedom to express the binary nature of sex,” E.O. §5 (Jan. 20, 2025), perma.cc/U3NM-XY2A. Olentangy invokes state law. OSD-Br.12-13. But Ohio is here opposing Olentangy, States-Br. (Doc.160), and state law rejects the notion that students’ stated gender identity should be uncritically affirmed, see O.R.C. §3319.90 (bathrooms); §3313.5320 (sports); §3313.473 (parental notice, as of Apr. 2025). Olentangy invokes Tinker. But it refuses to make a case under Tinker or this circuit’s precedent. And its pronoun diktats deprive all students of Tinker’s lesson: “The Nation’s future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth out of a multitude of tongues, rather than through any kind of authoritative selection.” 393 U.S. 503, 512 (1969) (cleaned up).

This Court should reverse. Olentangy should be barred from punishing students for “purposefully referring to another student by using gendered language they know is contrary to the other student’s identity.” Emails, R.7-2, PageID#356.