Amicus Curiae Brief — January Littlejohn, et vir, Petitioners v. School Board of Leon County, Florida, et al.

No. 25-259

In the Supreme Court of the United States

JANUARY LITTLEJOHN and JEFFREY LITTLEJOHN,

Petitioners,

v.

SCHOOL BOARD OF LEON COUNTY, FLORIDA, et al.,

Respondents.

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE

ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

BRIEF OF FLORIDA, MONTANA, WEST

VIRGINIA, 19 OTHER STATES, AND THE

ARIZONA LEGISLATURE AS AMICI

CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS

JAMES UTHMEIER

Attorney General

JEFFREY PAUL DESOUSA*

Acting Solicitor General

JASON J. MUEHLHOFF

Chief Deputy Solicitor

General

CASEY J. WITTE

Solicitor General Fellow

Office of the Florida

Attorney General

PL-01, The Capitol

Tallahassee, FL 32399

jeffrey.desousa

October 6, 2025

@myfloridalegal.com

Counsel for Amici Curiae

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ...................................... iii

INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE ................................ 1

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ..................................... 1

ARGUMENT ............................................................... 3

I.

Lower courts need clarity to resolve the

increasing number of parental rights disputes

in this context ..................................................... 4

II.

Parental rights are among the oldest and most

established rights in our legal tradition ............ 6

III. Bench, bar, and academy agree that the

shocks-the-conscience test is unworkable ........ 11

CONCLUSION .......................................................... 13

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Cnty. of Sacramento v. Lewis,

523 U.S. 833 (1998) ...................................... 3, 11, 12

Chavez v. Martinez,

538 U.S. 760 (2003) ..............................................3, 4

Browder v. City of Albuquerque,

787 F.3d 1076 (10th Cir. 2015)................................2

Brown v. Ent. Merchants Ass’n,

564 U.S. 786 (2011) ..................................................8

Christensen v. Cnty. of Boone,

483 F.3d 454 (7th Cir. 2007)....................................2

Connor B. ex rel. Vigurs v. Patrick,

985 F. Supp. 2d 129 (D. Mass. 2013) ....................11

Doe ex rel. Doe v. Jewell,

151 F.4th 236 (5th Cir. 2025) ................................12

Fagan v. City of Vineland,

22 F.3d 1296 (3d Cir. 1994) ...................................12

Foote v. Ludlow Sch. Comm.,

128 F.4th 336 (1st Cir. 2025)...................................2

Hancock v. Cnty. of Rensselaer,

882 F.3d 58 (2d Cir. 2018) .......................................2

Hawkins v. Freeman,

195 F.3d 732 (4th Cir. 1999)....................................2

iv

Irvine v. California,

347 U.S. 128 (1954) ................................................12

Kanuszewski v. Mich. Dep’t of

Health & Hum. Servs.,

927 F.3d 396 (6th Cir. 2019)....................................3

Keohane v. Fla. Dep’t of Corr. Sec’y,

952 F.3d 1257 (11th Cir. 2020)................................9

Mahmoud v. Taylor,

145 S. Ct. 2332 (2025)..............................................7

May v. Anderson,

345 U.S. 528 (1953) ..................................................1

Meyer v. Nebraska,

262 U.S. 390 (1923) ..............................................1, 7

Mirabelli v. Olson,

761 F. Supp. 3d 1317 (S.D. Cal. 2025) ....................6

Parents Protecting Our Child., UA v. Eau Claire Area

Sch. Dist.,

145 S. Ct. 14 (2024)........................................ 4, 5, 10

Parham v. J.R.,

442 U.S. 584 (1979) ..................................................7

Pierce v. Soc’y of the Sisters of the Holy Names of

Jesus & Mary,

268 U.S. 510 (1925) ..................................................7

Regino v. Staley,

133 F.4th 951 (9th Cir. 2025) ..................................3

v

Slusarchuk v. Hoff,

346 F.3d 1178 (8th Cir. 2003)..................................2

Stanley v. Illinois,

405 U.S. 645 (1972) ..............................................1, 7

Steele v. Cicchi,

855 F.3d 494 (3d Cir. 2017) .....................................2

Troxel v. Granville,

530 U.S. 57 (2000) ...................................... 2, 6, 7, 10

United States v. Miller,

891 F.2d 1265 (7th Cir. 1989)................................12

United States v. Skrmetti,

145 S. Ct. 1816 (2025)............................................10

Wisconsin v. Yoder,

406 U.S. 205 (1972) ..................................................7

Statutes

Cal. Educ. Code § 220.1 ...............................................6

Cal. Educ. Code § 220.3 ...............................................6

Cal. Educ. Code § 220.5 ...............................................6

Other Authorities

Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws

of England (1753) ....................................................8

Chesney, Old Wine or New? The Shocks-TheConscience Standard and the Distinction Between

vi

Legislative and Executive Action,

50 Syracuse L. Rev. 981 (2000) .............................11

Diamond, Normal Development of Prefrontal Cortex

from Birth to Young Adulthood: Cognitive

Functions, Anatomy, and Biochemistry, in

Principles of Frontal Lobe Function

(D. Stuss & R. Knight eds., 2002) ...........................8

Ditz, Ownership and Obligation: Inheritance and

Patriarchal Households in Connecticut, 1750-1820,

47 Wm. & Mary Q. 235 (1990).................................8

Farnsworth, Conscience Shocking in the Age of

Trump, 2020 Wis. L. Rev. 805 (2020) ...................11

Jones, The Façade of Medical Consensus: How

Medical Associations Prioritize Politics Over

Science, 2025 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y Per Curiam

(2025) ........................................................................9

Levinson, Time to Bury the Shocks the Conscience

Test, 13 Chap. L. Rev. 307 (2010) .........................11

Pufendorf, The Whole Duty of Man According to the

Law of Nature (1735) ...............................................8

Schoeman, Parental Discretion and Children’s

Rights: Background and Implications for MedicalDecision-Making, 10 J. Med. & Phil. 45 (1985) ......8

1

INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE

Amici are the States of Florida, Montana, West

Virginia, 19 other States, and the Arizona Legislature

(“Amici States”). Amici States seek to ensure that parents retain their fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their minor children—a right this Court

has described as “essential” and “far more precious . . .

than property rights.” Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645,

651 (1972) (first quoting Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S.

390, 299 (1923); and then May v. Anderson, 345 U.S.

528, 533 (1953)).

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

Parental rights are fundamental and foundational.

It is parents who are entrusted with ultimate responsibility for the care, formation, and well-being of their

children. Recently, parental rights have taken on new

focus as an ever-growing number of public-school officials are placing it upon themselves to make life-altering decisions for children in place of, or in direct

conflict with, parents’ convictions. That unfortunate

phenomenon is front and center in this case. School

officials in Leon County, Florida, helped a child “socially transition” at school—meaning, they treated

that child as being of the opposite sex—then hid that

fact from the child’s parents. This sort of intervention



Pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 37.2, Counsel of Record

for both parties were timely notified of the States’ intent to file

this amicus curiae brief.

2

is highly destructive and can lead to permanent damage to the child’s mental and physical health.

As this Court has recognized, “the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children”

“is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court.” Troxel v. Granville,

530 U.S. 57, 65 (2000) (plurality opinion). Yet the

lower courts have struggled to interpret and apply the

Court’s jurisprudence in this context.

Rather than merely looking to history and tradition, a troubling number of circuit courts impose an

additional burden—the inscrutable shocks-the-conscience test—on anyone seeking to vindicate their fundamental rights in the face of executive infringement.

This is wrong. Applying the shocks-the-conscience

test to liberty-interest claims is already a dubious undertaking, but there is no good reason to apply that

onerous test to fundamental-rights claims. Opaque

precedent has confused the lower courts and generated an 8-2 circuit split along the way. Now eight circuits require plaintiffs to satisfy the shocks-theconscience test on top of the traditional elements of a

fundamental rights claim.1 Two circuits, taking the

1 See Foote v. Ludlow Sch. Comm., 128 F.4th 336, 346 (1st Cir.

2025) (per curiam); Hancock v. Cnty. of Rensselaer, 882 F.3d 58,

65–66 (2d Cir. 2018); Steele v. Cicchi, 855 F.3d 494, 502 (3d Cir.

2017); Hawkins v. Freeman, 195 F.3d 732, 738–39, 738 n.1 (4th

Cir. 1999); Christensen v. Cnty. of Boone, 483 F.3d 454, 462 n.2

(7th Cir. 2007); Slusarchuk v. Hoff, 346 F.3d 1178, 1181–82, 1182

n.2 (8th Cir. 2003); Browder v. City of Albuquerque, 787 F.3d

1076, 1078–79, 1079 n.1 (10th Cir. 2015).

3

correct view, do not.2 Given the importance of fundamental rights and the capricious nature of the shocksthe-conscience test, lower courts and litigants alike

need guidance. The Court should grant certiorari.

ARGUMENT

In County of Sacramento v. Lewis, the Court noted

“that the substantive component of the Due Process

Clause is violated by executive action only when it can

properly be characterized as arbitrary, or conscience

shocking, in a constitutional sense.” 523 U.S. 833, 847

(1998) (quotation omitted). But then, in Chavez v.

Martinez, a plurality of the Court suggested that fundamental-rights claims need not satisfy the shocksthe-conscience test. 538 U.S. 760, 774–76 (2003) (plurality opinion) (treating the shocks-the-conscience

test and the fundamental-liberty test as alternative

standards for identifying a constitutional violation).

Amici States offer three points below. First, lower

courts need guidance in adjudicating a wave of parental-rights litigation. Second, parental rights are some

of the oldest fundamental rights that this Court has

recognized and play a bedrock role in American society. And third, the shocks-the-conscience test is an unworkable standard. Each point weighs in favor of

certiorari.

2 See Regino v. Staley, 133 F.4th 951, 960 n.5 (9th Cir. 2025);

Kanuszewski v. Mich. Dep’t of Health & Hum. Servs., 927 F.3d

396, 414 n.9 (6th Cir. 2019).

4

I.

Lower courts need clarity to resolve the increasing number of parental-rights disputes

in this context.

The Littlejohns’ story is troubling but increasingly

common. Across the country, government officials are

fundamentally altering the upbringing of children and

keeping parents in the dark. Dizzying numbers of

school districts and a growing number of states have

passed similar “secret transition” laws and ordinances

without any concerns for parental rights. A flood of litigation has followed.

In Southern California, for example, public school

officials facilitated a secret “social transition” for Jessica Bradshaw’s autistic 15-year-old daughter.3

Unbeknownst to Ms. Bradshaw, teachers and administrators encouraged her daughter to live as a boy for

six months. See id. Officials secured permission for

Ms. Bradshaw’s daughter to “use the boy’s bathroom

and call [her] by male pronouns.” Id. When Ms. Bradshaw confronted a school official about these practices, the official stated that “[d]istrict and state

policies” did not require officials to inform Ms. Bradshaw how they shaped her daughter’s development.

Id.

This school district is one of many across the country that will happily hide and facilitate a child’s social

transition. See id. Just over a year ago, “more than

1,000 districts [had] adopted such policies.” Parents

3 See Katie J.M. Baker, When Students Change Gender Identity, and Parents Don’t Know, N.Y. Times (Jan. 22, 2023),

https://tinyurl.com/yyy47n6n.

5

Protecting Our Child., UA v. Eau Claire Area Sch.

Dist., 145 S. Ct. 14, 14 (2024) (Alito, J., dissenting

from denial of certiorari). That number has increased

to more than 1,200 school districts today.4 12.3 million

students, approximately one quarter of all public K-12

students nationwide, are subject to these policies.5

Newly enacted laws and policies at the state level

have created increasing tension with parents’ rights.

In 2023, the New York State Education Department

promulgated guidance to public school teachers on

how to conceal a social transition from a child’s parents.6 “The key takeaway: if your child decides that he

or she wants to socially transition to the opposite gender, it is now a ‘best practice’ for the school to lie to

you about it.”7 New York follows New Jersey, which

has had near-identical policies on the books since

2018.8

4 See List of School District Transgender – Gender Noncon-

forming Student Policies, Defending Educ. (Apr. 21, 2025),

https://tinyurl.com/7rtmmv7r (last accessed Sept. 18, 2025).

5 See id.; Public School Enrollment, Nat’l Ctr. for Educ. Stat.,

(last accessed Oct. 6, 2025), https://tinyurl.com/5d2vvwcs (estimating public K-12 public school enrollment at 48.2 million students in 2025).

6 See N.Y. State Dep’t of Educ., Creating a Safe, Supportive,

and Affirming School Environment for Transgender and Gender

Expansive Students: 2023 Legal Update and Best Practices 16–

17 (2023), https://tinyurl.com/3685jcjd.

7 Max Eden, New York State’s Directive to Schools: Lie to Parents, City J. (June 16, 2023), https://tinyurl.com/mr44mdnd.

8 See Dana DiFilippo, State, School District Defend NJ Guid-

ance on Transgender Students from Court Challenge, N.J. Monitor (Sept. 5, 2025, at 6:35 AM), https://tinyurl.com/bdezkcdt; see

6

In 2024, California took a step further by enacting

protections for all school officials who refuse to disclose any information concerning a child’s gender expression to any other person. See Cal. Educ. Code

§ 220.3. California also provides robust anti-retaliation protections for school officials that feel the need

to shape a child’s sexual identity away from parental

supervision. See id. § 220.1. And it further bars school

districts from requiring parental disclosures concerning efforts to socially transition children. See id.

§ 220.5(a).9

These radical policies have revealed a blind spot in

the Court’s jurisprudence. As one district court lamented, “[t]here are no controlling decisions” in this

context. Mirabelli v. Olson, 761 F. Supp. 3d 1317,

1332 (S.D. Cal. 2025). This case presents an opportunity to resolve that confusion.

II. Parental rights are among the oldest and

most established rights in our legal tradition.

It’s especially important to understand what test

applies given the significance of the right at issue.

Courts have long acknowledged the importance of empowering parents to manage their child’s care. Such

rights are “perhaps the oldest of the fundamental lib-

also N.J. Dep’t of Educ., Transgender Student Guidance for

School Districts 3 (2018), https://tinyurl.com/mr47m2hm.

9 See also Diana Lambert & Monica Velez, Newsom Signs Bill

to End Parental Notification Policies at Schools; Opponents Say

Fight is Not Over, EdSource (July 17, 2024).

7

erty interests recognized.” Troxel, 530 U.S. at 65 (plurality opinion). Because children are unable “to make

sound judgments concerning many decisions,” the

Court has understood our Constitution to incorporate

“broad parental authority over minor children.” Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584, 602–03 (1979). Accordingly,

the Court has recognized a parent’s right to direct

their child’s education, see Meyer v. Nebraska, 262

U.S. 390, 400 (1923); Pierce v. Soc’y of the Sisters of

the Holy Names of Jesus & Mary, 268 U.S. 510, 534–

35 (1925), religious upbringing, see Wisconsin v.

Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 214 (1972), and their own relationship, see Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651

(1972).

This Court has heralded a parent’s right “to make

decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of

their children.” Troxel, 530 U.S. at 66 (plurality); see

Mahmoud v. Taylor, 145 S. Ct. 2332, 2358 (2025) (“We

reject this chilling vision of the power of the state to

strip away the critical right of parents to guide the religious development of their children.”). As relevant

here, that right “include[s] their need for medical care

or treatment.” Parham, 442 U.S. at 603. Whereas a

“child may balk at hospitalization or complain about

a parental refusal to provide cosmetic surgery,” a parent typically will know better and should have the

“authority to decide what is best for the child.” Id. at

604. That basic right is only more pressing when the

ideology pushed by the schools ignores basic reality

about the two sexes and further confuses innocent and

impressionable children.

History and tradition undergird those precedents.

As early commentators recognized, children do not understand “how to govern themselves.” 2 Samuel Pufendorf, The Whole Duty of Man According to the Law

8

of Nature 202 (1735). Their “wants and weaknesses”

thus “render it necessary that some person maintains

them” until adulthood. 2 James Kent, Commentaries

on American Law 190 (1873); 1 William Blackstone,

Commentaries on the Laws of England 447 (1753);

Pufendorf, Whole Duty of Man at 202; see also Brown

v. Ent. Merchants Ass’n, 564 U.S. 786, 828–29 (2011)

(Thomas, J., dissenting). Parents have traditionally

been entrusted as “the most fit and proper person[s]”

for that task. Kent, American Law at 190. And so, the

common law equipped parents with equally robust parental rights. “[H]ousehold heads” were empowered to

“speak for their dependents in dealings with the

larger world,” Toby L. Ditz, Ownership and Obligation: Inheritance and Patriarchal Households in Connecticut, 1750-1820, 47 Wm. & Mary Q. 235, 236

(1990), and parents enjoyed the “right . . . to govern

their children’s growth,” Brown, 564 U.S. at 828

(Thomas, J., dissenting).

Medical and social-science literature only confirms

the wisdom of our tradition. Longstanding research

shows that children are unable to “deliberate maturely” towards their own best interests. Ferdinand

Schoeman, Parental Discretion and Children’s Rights:

Background and Implications for Medical-DecisionMaking, 10 J. Med. & Phil. 45, 46 (1985). As any parent knows, children often make poor decisions because

they lack life experience. Medical science also tells us

that children make these poor decisions because a

child’s prefrontal cortex, the portion of the brain that

9

deals with reasoning and long-term consequences, is

underdeveloped.10

Those deficiencies also make parental involvement

critical in the context of gender dysphoria, a condition

characterized as “distress that may accompany the incongruence between one’s experienced or expressed

gender and one’s assigned gender.” Keohane v. Fla.

Dep’t of Corr. Sec’y, 952 F.3d 1257, 1262 (11th Cir.

2020). One purported treatment for that ailment—the

treatment school officials secretly provided the Littlejohns’ child—is social transitioning: the practice of

treating a person in line with their imagined proper

gender. See id. at 1263. But recent reports reveal that

social transitioning “can concretize gender dysphoria”

and may not “improve[] mental health status in the

short term.”11 Worse still, “de-transition and/or regret

could be more frequent than previously reported” for

individuals suffering from adolescent-onset gender

dysphoria, and continuing down these types of treatment paths may lead to “irreversible effects.” Id.12 Indeed, social transitions are serious psychosocial

10 See Adele Diamond, Normal Development of Prefrontal Cor-

tex from Birth to Young Adulthood: Cognitive Functions, Anatomy, and Biochemistry, in Principles of Frontal Lobe Function

466 (D. Stuss & R. Knight eds., 2002) (noting that the pre-frontal

cortex takes “over two decades to reach full maturity”), https://tinyurl.com/4j5xvbpa.

11 Sarah C. J. Jorgensen, Transition Regret and Detransition:

Meanings and Uncertainties, 52 Arch Sex Behav., 2173, 2173–84

(2023), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02626-2.

12 Officials encouraging children to transition—whether so-

cially or medically—heavily relied on position statements published by medical associations like the World Professional

10

interventions that have shown long-term negative

consequences on mental health.13

The decision below discounts this authority. In fact,

it led the dissenting judge to question whether “the

Constitution still protect[s] parents’ fundamental

right[s] to direct the upbringing of their children” in

the face of those serious risks. App. 173a (Tjoflat, J.,

dissenting). By misapplying this Court’s shocks-theconscience precedent, the panel “water[ed] down” parents’ “fundamental right[]” to know of and control

what supposed medical care a school provides to their

child. App. 167a. The correctness of that move “presents a question of great and growing . . . importance”

that the Court should answer. Parents Protecting, 145

Association for Transgender Health (“WPATH”). See Chloe K.

Jones, The Façade of Medical Consensus: How Medical Associations Prioritize Politics Over Science, 2025 Harv. J.L. & Pub.

Pol’y Per Curiam 4–6 (2025). There is, however, compelling evidence to suggest these medical associations “often [choose] their

positions . . . to advance policy objectives rather than scientific

principles.” Id. at 6. Indeed, “[r]ecent revelations suggest that

WPATH, long considered a standard bearer in treating pediatric

gender dysphoria . . . bases its guidance on insufficient evidence

and allows politics to influence its medical conclusions.” United

States v. Skrmetti, 145 S. Ct. 1816, 1847 (2025) (Thomas, J., concurring).

13 See Hilary Cass, Independent review of gender identity services for children and young people 158–64 (2024), https://tinyurl.com/cytx5spn. “Clinical involvement in the decisionmaking process should include advising on the risks and benefits

of social transition as a planned intervention, referencing best

available evidence. This is not a role that can be taken by staff

without appropriate clinical training.” Id. at 164 (emphasis

added).

11

S. Ct. at 14 (Alito, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari).

III. Bench, bar, and academy agree that the

shocks-the-conscience test is unworkable.

In Sacramento v. Lewis, the Court attempted to explain the shocks-the-conscience standard. 523 U.S. at

846–47. That standard, the Court wrote, is equivalent

to conduct that “violates the ‘decencies of civilized conduct’” or that was “so ‘brutal’ and ‘offensive’ that it did

not comport with traditional ideas of fair play and decency.” Id. “While the measure of what is conscience

shocking is no calibrated yard stick, it does . . . point

the way.” 523 U.S. at 847 (cleaned up). That amorphous guidance has proved unhelpful. Critiques of the

shocks-the-conscious test have come from every corner of the legal industry. Start with scholars, who

have repeatedly noted that “the test established in

Lewis has proved to be unworkable.” Rosalie B. Levinson, Time to Bury the Shocks the Conscience Test, 13

Chap. L. Rev. 307, 333 (2010); see Lee Farnsworth,

Conscience Shocking in the Age of Trump, 2020 Wis.

L. Rev. 805, 811–20 (2020) (surveying the lower

courts’ confusion when applying the shocks-the-conscience test); Robert Chesney, Old Wine or New? The

Shocks-The-Conscience Standard and the Distinction

Between Legislative and Executive Action, 50 Syracuse

L. Rev. 981, 999–1000 n.102 (2000) (cataloging the different standards spawned by Lewis in the circuit

courts).

So too among courts, which agree that “[t]here appears to be little consensus on the proper standard one

ought apply in the deployment of the shocks-the-conscience test.” Connor B. ex rel. Vigurs v. Patrick, 985

F. Supp. 2d 129, 159 (D. Mass. 2013), aff’d, 774 F.3d

12

45 (1st Cir. 2014) (collecting cases). Given its subjective nature, many judges have concluded that “the

‘shocks the conscience’ test is hardly a test at all.” Fagan v. City of Vineland, 22 F.3d 1296, 1319 (3d Cir.

1994) (en banc) (Cowen, J., dissenting); see, e.g., Doe

ex rel. Doe v. Jewell, 151 F.4th 236, 251 (5th Cir. 2025)

(“To be sure, the ‘shocks the conscience’ theory of the

Due Process Clause has come under withering criticism in both judicial and academic circles.” (Ho, J.,

concurring)); Richard A Posner, Reflections on Judging 118–19 (2013) (“shock[] the conscience—whatever

that means . . . . I don’t know what the expression

means, or what it adds to indifference to a known risk

of injury”). “Such a meandering, personal approach is

the antithesis of justice under law, and we ought not

indulge it.” United States v. Miller, 891 F.2d 1265,

1273 (7th Cir. 1989) (Easterbrook, J., concurring).

More than 70 years ago, Justice Clark recognized

that the shocks-the-conscience test “makes for such

uncertainty and unpredictability that it would be impossible to foretell—other than by guess-work—just

how brazen the invasion of the [protected right] must

be in order to shock itself into the protective arms of

the Constitution.” Irvine v. People of California, 347

U.S. 128, 138 (1954) (Clark, J., concurring). Over the

ensuing decades, criticism has only sharpened. Justice Scalia quipped that the shocks-the-conscience test

is nothing more than “the ne plus ultra, the Napoleon

Brandy, the Mahatma Gandhi, the Cellophane of subjectivity.” Cnty. of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833,

861 (1998) (Scalia, J., concurring). And when the

Court appeared to fully embrace the shock-the-conscience test in Lewis, Justice Scalia noted that the “atavistic methodology . . . announce[d] for the Court is

13

the very same methodology that the Court called atavistic when it was proffered . . . in Glucksberg.” Id.

(Scalia, J., concurring). Such strong medicine requires

a firm basis in law. Neither text nor history supplies

that basis. As a result, parents seeking to vindicate

their parental rights are treated differently based on

their geography alone. An official infringing parental

rights in Florida must shock-the-conscience, but not

in California. This “is not a rule of any kind, let alone

a command of the Due Process Clause.” Miller, 891

F.2d at 1273 (Easterbrook, J., concurring).

The lack of a coherent approach and the extraordinary disregard for parental rights underscores why

the Court’s guidance is needed. Parents cannot prepare for every possible game that opposing parties will

play and that lower courts will adopt. More critically,

the status quo leaves parents without recourse when

schools seek to commandeer the parental role at times

when their children most need the wisdom, guidance,

and values that only parents—who know and love

their children best—can provide.

CONCLUSION

The court should grant Petitioners’ writ of certiorari.

14

Respectfully submitted,

October 6, 2025

JAMES UTHMEIER

Attorney General

JEFFREY PAUL DESOUSA

Acting Solicitor General

Counsel of Record

JASON J. MUEHLHOFF

Chief Deputy Solicitor

General

CASEY J. WITTE

Solicitor General Fellow

Office of the Florida

Attorney General

PL-01, The Capitol

Tallahassee, FL 32399

jeffrey.desousa

@myfloridalegal.com

Counsel for Amici Curiae

15

ADDITIONAL SIGNATORIES

STEVE MARSHALL

Attorney General

State of Alabama

BRENNA BIRD

Attorney General

State of Iowa

STEPHEN COX

Attorney General

State of Alaska

KRIS KOBACH

Attorney General

State of Kansas

STEVE MONTENEGRO

Speaker of the Arizona

House of Representatives

RUSSELL COLEMAN

Attorney General

State of Kentucky

WARREN PETERSON

President of the Arizona Senate

TIM GRIFFIN

Attorney General

State of Arkansas

CHRIS CARR

Attorney General

State of Georgia

RAÚL R. LABRADOR

Attorney General

State of Idaho

THEODORE E. ROKITA

Attorney General

State of Indiana

LIZ MURRILL

Attorney General

State of Louisiana

LYNN FITCH

Attorney General

State of Mississippi

CATHERINE HANAWAY

Attorney General

State of Missouri

MICHAEL T. HILGERS

Attorney General

State of Nebraska

DREW H. WRIGLEY

Attorney General

State of North Dakota

16

DAVE YOST

Attorney General

State of Ohio

GENTNER DRUMMOND

Attorney General

State of Oklahoma

ALAN WILSON

Attorney General

State of South Carolina

MARTY J. JACKLEY

Attorney General

State of South Dakota

KEN PAXTON

Attorney General

State of Texas