Episode 26: Parents Defending Education v. Olentangy Local School District, et al.
Parents Defending Education v. Olentangy Local School District, argued before the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on March 19, 2025. Argued by Cameron Norris (on behalf of Parents Defending Education); Elliott Gaiser, Solicitor General of Ohio (on behalf of Ohio and 22 other states as amici curiae); and Jaime Santos (on behalf of the Olentangy Local School District Board of Education, et al.).
Background of the case, from the Institute for Free Speech’s second amicus brief (in support of reversal):
While students may freely identify as having genders that do not correspond to their biological sex, other students enjoy the same right to credit their own perceptions of reality—and to speak their minds when addressing their classmates. Students cannot be compelled to speak in a manner that confesses, accommodates, and conforms to an ideology they reject—even if that ideology’s adherents are offended by any refusal to agree with them or endorse their viewpoint. Yet that is what the Olentangy school district’s speech code does.
“Pronouns are political.” Dennis Baron, What’s Your Pronoun? 39 (2020). History shows that people have long used pronouns to express messages about society and its structure—often in rebellion against the prevailing ideology. And the same is true today. Choosing to use “preferred” or “non-preferred” pronouns often “advance[s] a viewpoint on gender identity.” Meriwether v. Hartop, 992 F.3d 492, 509 (6th Cir. 2021). So mandating that students use “preferred” pronouns or none at all elevates one viewpoint while silencing the other. It compels students to adopt the district’s ideology on gender identity while at school, and in doing so, “invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control.” W. Va. Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943).
Statement of the Issues, from the Brief of Appellant Parents Defending Education:
The use of gender-specific pronouns is a “hot issue” that “has produced a passionate political and social debate” across the country. Meriwether v. Hartop, 992 F.3d 492, 508-09 (6th Cir. 2021). One side believes that gender is subjective and so people should use others’ “preferred pronouns”; the other side believes that sex is immutable and so people should use pronouns that correspond with biological sex. Id. at 498. Like the general public, students have varying views on this important subject, and the Supreme Court has long recognized that students don’t “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969). Yet the Olentangy Local School District has adopted policies that punish speech expressed by one side of the debate—the use of pronouns that are contrary to another student’s identity. The district court upheld the Policies as consistent with the First Amendment and denied PDE’s preliminary-injunction motion.
The issues presented in this appeal are:
- Whether the District’s speech policies likely violate the First Amendment because they compel speech, discriminate based on viewpoint, prohibit speech based on content without evidence of a substantial disruption, or are overbroad.
- Whether, if PDE is likely to succeed on the merits, the remaining preliminary-injunction criteria favor issuing a preliminary injunction.
Resources:
- CourtListener docket page for Parents Defending Education v. Olentangy Local School Dist, et al.
- Brief for Appellant Parents Defending Education
- Brief for Appellee Olentangy Local School Dist, et al.
- Supplemental En Banc Brief of Plaintiff-Appellant Parents Defending Education
- Institute for Free Speech first amicus brief (in support of rehearing en banc)
- Institute for Free Speech second amicus brief (in support of reversal)
Listen to the argument here:
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