Amicus Curiae Brief — Kimberly Ann Polk, Petitioner v. Montgomery County Public Schools, et al.

No. 26-8

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

KIMBERLY ANN POLK,

V.

PETITIONER,

MONTGOMERY COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS, ET AL.

RESPONDENTS.

_________________________________________________

On Petition for A Writ of Certiorari to the

United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth

Circuit

_________________________________________________

Brief For Amici Curiae

Our Duty–USA and Child & Parental Rights

Campaign

In Support of Petitioner

________________________________________________

C. Erin Friday Mary E. McAlister

Our Duty - Counsel of Record

USA

Vernadette R. Broyles

P.O. Box 442

Child

&

Parental

Rights

San Carlos, CA Campaign

94070

5425 Peachtree Pkwy, Suite 110

Norcross, GA 30092

(770) 448-4525

mmcalister@childparentrights.org

Attorneys for Amici Curiae

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................... i

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

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

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ............................ 2

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

I.

Ms. Polk was fired for refusing MCPS’s

directive that she give children veto

power over their parents’ fundamental

constitutional right to make decisions

about consequential and controversial

sex-rejecting interventions for their

children. ................................................. 3

II.

Ms. Polk was fired for refusing to

participate in MCPS’s violation of

parents’ fundamental constitutional

rights as established in Mahmoud and

Mirabelli. ............................................... 9

A.

Ms. Polk was fired for seeking to

protect parents’ fundamental right

to direct the upbringing and mental

health decision-making for their

children. ........................................ 10

B.

Ms. Polk acted to protect parents’

fundamental right to direct the

religious upbringing of their

children. ........................................ 13

ii

III. MCPS’s Parental Secrecy Policy is an

unconstitutional presumptive procedure

based on the statist notion that

governmental

authority

should

supersede parental authority because

some parents are found to abuse their

children. ............................................... 17

CONCLUSION ................................................. 20

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Bellotti v. Baird,

443 U.S. 622 (1979)..................................................8

Goss v. Lopez,

419 U.S. 565 (1975)..................................................5

Hazelwood School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier,

484 U.S. 260 (1988)..................................................5

Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian &

Bisexual Group of Boston, 515 U.S. 557

(1995)........................................................................4

Janus v. AFSCME Council 31,

585 U.S. 878 (2018)..................................................4

Kennedy v. Bremerton School Dist.

597 U.S. 507 (2022)................................................ 15

Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B. L.,

594 U.S. 180 (2021).............................................. 5, 6

Mahmoud v. Taylor,

606 U.S. 522 (2025).......................2, 9, 10, 13-15, 20

Meyer v. Nebraska,

262 U.S. 390 (1923)................................................ 11

Mirabelli v. Bonta,

146 S. Ct. 797 (2026)...................................... 2, 9-15

iv

Mirabelli. City of Huntington Beach v.

Newsom, 2026 WL 1785110 (9th Circuit case

# 25-3826 June 18, 2026)....................................... 12

Mueller v. Auker,

700 F.3d (9th Cir. 2012) ........................................ 17

Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. MorrisseyBerru, 591 U.S. 732 (2020) .................................... 15

Parham v. J. R.,

442 U.S. 584 (1979)....................... 7, 9, 11,12, 17, 18

Pierce v. Society of Sisters,

268 U.S. 510 (1925).......................................... 11, 12

Polk v. MCPS,

166 F.4th 400 (4th Cir. 2026) ............................ 4, 16

Prince v. Massachusetts,

321 U.S. 158 (1944)..................................................9

Santosky v. Kramer,

455 U.S. 745 (1982)................................................ 17

Stanley v. Illinois,

405 U.S. 645 (1972).......................................... 17, 18

Troxel v. Granville,

530 U.S. 57 (2000).................................. 9, 11, 17, 19

United States v. Skrmetti,

605 U.S. 495 (2025) ...........................................7, 19

Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v. Acton,

515 U.S. 646 (1995).................................................5

v

Treatises

1 W. Blackstone, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS

OF ENGLAND 441 (1765) ...........................................6

1

INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE 1

Our Duty—USA (“Our Duty”) is a secular

nonprofit corporation with more than 1,000 members

from all fifty states who have varied political

backgrounds, ethnicities, and sexual orientations but

share the experience of raising former and current

trans-identified children. The members’ children

adopted transgender identities after being introduced

to the concept through school settings, peer groups,

and online. Our Duty appreciates that the distress is

genuine, but the adoption of transgender identities is

not organic, and the cure is not drugs or surgeries.

Our Duty members have children who have

been influenced by teachers, peers, and social media

to adopt trans identities only to later drop the identity

when they are removed from the schools or other

indoctrinating settings. Consequently, Amicus has a

compelling interest in protecting the fundamental

constitutional rights of parents to direct the

upbringing and education of their children and asks

this Court to grant the Petition and reverse

Respondents’ attack on parents’ fundamental rights.

Child & Parental Rights Campaign, Inc.

(CPRC) is a nonprofit, public-interest law firm that

represents parents across the country in challenging

governmental actions that threaten parental rights,

including, as is true here, a policy that requires school

staff to conceal from parents that their children have

All parties were timely notified of the filing of this brief.

This brief was not authored in whole or in part by counsel for any

party and no person or entity other than amicus curiae or its

counsel has made a monetary contribution toward the brief’s

preparation or submission.

1

2

asserted a discordant “gender identity” at school.

CPRC represents parents and teachers who have

challenged policies which conceal from parents that

their children are being treated as something other

than their sex at school, and parents who have lost

custody of their gender confused child if they fail to

“affirm” their child’s asserted discordant “gender

identity.” CPRC’s clients have suffered significantly

from parental secrecy policies such as the one

Montgomery County Public Schools (“MCPS”) has

adopted. It urges this Court to grant the Petition and

vindicate parents and teachers who are standing up

for children.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

As was true of its “LGBTQ-inclusive” book

policy in Mahmoud v. Taylor, 606 U.S. 522, 559

(2025), Respondents’ Parental Secrecy Policy

infringes parents’ fundamental rights to direct the

religious development of their children. In fact, MCPS’

Parental Secrecy Policy, like the California policy

enjoined in Mirabelli v. Bonta, 607 U.S. 492, 496-497

(2026) (per curiam), is even more intrusive and

violative of parents’ free exercise rights than was the

book policy in Mahmoud. As was true of the policy

enjoined in Mirabelli, the Parental Secrecy Policy also

likely violates parents’ fundamental right to direct the

upbringing of their children, including making mental

health decisions. 607 U.S. at 497-98.

Sex-rejecting interventions, including social

transition at school, frequently leading to

administration of puberty blockers, cross-sex

hormones and/or surgery, are fiercely debated and of

questionable efficacy. Excluding parents from these

3

decisions, as MCPS does, leaves them in the hands of

disinterested school officials and immature

adolescents who are incapable of appreciating the

gravity of the decisions.

MCPS’s Parental Secrecy Policy usurps the

doctrine of in loco parentis to empower children to

supersede their parents’ decision-making authority

when children assert discordant identity (reject their

sex). Ms. Polk sought an accommodation so as not to

participate in the usurpation of parental rights, for

which she was terminated.

Ms. Polk sought to withdraw her cooperation

from MCPS’s unconstitutional procedure, which

violates parental rights, based on the statist notion

that governmental authority should supersede

parental authority. MCPS’s decision to terminate her

employment furthers the deprivation of parental

rights. This Court should grant the Petition.

ARGUMENT

I.

Ms. Polk was fired for refusing MCPS’s

directive that she give children veto

power over their parents’ fundamental

constitutional right to make decisions

about consequential and controversial

sex-rejecting interventions for their

children.

MCPS unilaterally granted children who claim

a discordant “gender identity” a right of selfdetermination that exceeds constitutional boundaries

and supersedes fundamental parental rights. Ms.

Polk objected to the District’s impermissible

4

usurpation of constitutional rights. She sought a

religious accommodation that would protect her free

speech and free exercise rights and preserve the

fundamental rights of her students’ parents. Instead

of honoring her request, MCPS chose to terminate her

employment and protect its policy that requires Ms.

Polk to conceal from parents that their children are

being affirmed to reject their sex at school (Parental

Secrecy Policy). As Judge Wilkinson said in his

dissent from the panel decision below:

MCPS has established a hierarchy of

public opinion, valuing pro-transgender

messages

above

more

socially

conservative positions—a paradigmatic

example of viewpoint discrimination.

But whether speech is “right” or “wrong,”

we must reject a policy that exists for “no

better reason than promoting an

approved message or discouraging a

disfavored one.”

Polk v. MCPS, 166 F.4th 400, 423 (4th Cir. 2026)

(Wilkinson, J., dissenting) (citing Hurley v. IrishAmerican Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Group of Boston,

515 U.S. 557, 579 (1995)). As well as “[f]orcing free ...

individuals [in this case, Ms. Polk] to endorse ideas

they find objectionable,” which “is always demeaning,”

id, 2 the Parental Secrecy Policy also subverts the

longstanding constitutional balance between parental

rights and children’s rights of self-determination.

2

(2018).

Citing Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, 585 U.S. 878, 893

5

“Traditionally at common law, and still today,

unemancipated minors lack some of the most

fundamental rights of self-determination—including

even the right of liberty in its narrow sense, i.e., the

right to come and go at will. They are subject, even as

to their physical freedom, to the control of their

parents or guardians.” Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v.

Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 654 (1995). “Minors are entitled

to a significant measure of First Amendment

protection. But we have also made clear that courts

must apply the First Amendment ‘in light of the

special characteristics of the school environment.’”

Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B. L., 594 U.S. 180, 187

(2021). (citing Hazelwood School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier,

484 U.S. 260, 266 (1988)). The nature of children’s

rights at school are not unlimited or, as MCPS

believes, self-defining, but are cabined by “what is

appropriate for children in school.” Id. at 656 (citing

Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565, 581–582, (1975)).

In Vernonia, this Court described the

appropriate balance between children’s rights and

parental rights in school in the context of random drug

testing for student athletes. In rejecting a challenge to

the policy by a couple of parents and students, the

Court noted that the “primary guardians of

Vernonia's schoolchildren,” i.e., their parents,

approved the policy. Id. at 665. It was the parents’

judgment, not the children’s preferences, that

mattered in determining whether the policy was

constitutionally valid.

The Vernonia Court’s description of the relative

role of parents vis-a-vis school officials reflects a

proper application of the modern meaning of the

doctrine of in loco parentis. Traditionally, parents

6

“delegated to school officials their own control of [their

child]” under the doctrine of in loco parentis “under

circumstances where the children’s actual parents

cannot protect, guide, and discipline them.” Mahanoy,

594 U.S. at 192 (2021).

Under the common law, as Blackstone

explained, “[a father could] delegate part

of his parental authority ... to the tutor

or schoolmaster of his child; who is then

in loco parentis, and has such a portion

of the power of the parent committed to

his charge, [namely,] that of restraint

and correction, as may be necessary to

answer the purposes for which he is

employed.”

1

W.

Blackstone,

COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF

ENGLAND 441 (1765) (some emphasis

added).

Id. at 198 (Alito, J., concurring).

If in loco parentis is transplanted from

Blackstone's England to the 21st century

United States, what it amounts to is

simply a doctrine of inferred parental

consent to a public school's exercise of a

degree

of

authority

that

is

commensurate with the task that the

parents ask the school to perform.

Because public school students attend

school for only part of the day and

continue to live at home, the degree of

authority conferred is obviously less

than that delegated to the head of a late18th century boarding school, but

because public school students are

7

taught outside the home, the authority

conferred may be greater in at least some

respects than that enjoyed by a tutor of

Blackstone's time.

Id. at 200. So how much authority do parents

implicitly delegate when they enroll a child in public

school? Not enough to justify MCPS’s Parental

Secrecy Policy. According to Justice Alito:

The answer must be that parents are

treated as having relinquished the

measure of authority that the schools

must be able to exercise in order to carry

out their state-mandated educational

mission, as well as the authority to

perform any other functions to which

parents expressly or implicitly agree—

for example, by giving permission for a

child to participate in an extracurricular

activity or to go on a school trip.

Id. at 200-201. It does not include delegating their

authority to make medical or mental health decisions

to their children or school staff as MCPS has done

with its Parental Secrecy Policy. “[S]tate officials

acting in loco parentis cannot be equated with

parents.” Parham v. J. R., 442 U.S. 584, 638 (1979)

(Brennan, J, concurring in part and dissenting in

part).

That is particularly true with regard to decisions

related to a child’s rejection of his or her sex which is

the subject of “fierce scientific and policy debates

about safety, efficacy, and propriety” of social and

medical interventions associated with children who

claim a discordant identity. United States v. Skrmetti,

605 U.S. 495, 525 (2025). “There is no dispute...that

8

the ‘decision-making capacity’ of adolescents ‘is

developing, but not yet complete. This Court has

recognized as much in other contexts, explaining that

children’s ‘lack of maturity’ and ‘underdeveloped

sense of responsibility’ often lead to ‘impetuous and

ill-considered actions and decisions.’” Id. at 540

(Thomas, J. concurring). Consequently, it is

particularly critical that parents be involved in, not

excluded from, decisions regarding their children’s

assertion of a discordant identity. Ms. Polk’s

requested accommodation would have protected the

critical decision-making authority of parents in this

context from the usurpation of MCPS’s Parental

Secrecy Policy.

Contrary to MCPS’s argument, parental control

is not a limit on the child’s liberty but a fulfillment of

it:

The tradition of parental authority is not

inconsistent with our tradition of

individual liberty [for a child]; rather,

the former is one of the basic

presuppositions of the latter. Legal

restrictions on minors, especially those

supportive of the parental role, may be

important to the child’s chances for the

full growth and maturity that make

eventual participation in a free society

meaningful and rewarding.

Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622, 638-39 (1979)

(plurality). MCPS’s policy deprives children of that

liberty as well as depriving parents of their

fundamental right to make these decisions.

9

II.

Ms. Polk was fired for refusing to

participate in MCPS’s violation of

parents’

fundamental

constitutional

rights as established in Mahmoud and

Mirabelli.

MCPS has violated this Court’s cardinal rule

that “the custody, care and nurture of the child reside

first in the parents, whose primary function and

freedom include preparation for obligations the state

can neither supply nor hinder.” Troxel v. Granville,

530 U.S. 57, 65-66 (2000) (citing Prince v.

Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166 (1944)).

[O]ur constitutional system long ago

rejected any notion that a child is the

mere creature of the State and, on the

contrary,

asserted

that

parents

generally have the right, coupled with

the high duty, to recognize and prepare

[their

children]

for

additional

obligations. ... The law’s concept of the

family rests on a presumption that

parents possess what a child lacks in

maturity, experience, and capacity for

judgment required for making life’s

difficult decisions. More important,

historically it has recognized that

natural bonds of affection lead parents to

act in the best interests of their children.

Id. at 68–69 (citing Parham, 442 U.S. at 602).

“Accordingly, so long as a parent adequately cares for

his or her children (i.e., is fit), there will normally be

no reason for the State to inject itself into the private

realm of the family to further question the ability of

10

that parent to make the best decisions concerning the

rearing of that parent’s children.” Id. at 68-69.

Indeed, as this Court confirmed in Mirabelli,

“the doctrine of substantive due process has long

embraced a parent’s right to raise her child, which

includes the right to participate in significant

decisions about her child’s mental health.” 607 U.S. at

804 (Barrett, J., concurring). Similarly, the Free

Exercise clause includes the “right of parents to guide

the religious development of their children,” which

includes the right not to have the school facilitate “a

child’s gender transition without parental consent” as

MCPS is doing here. Id. at 496 (citing Mahmoud, 606

U.S., at 559).

MCPS violated both of those rights when it

enacted its Parental Secrecy Policy. Ms. Polk should

have been applauded, not terminated, for requesting

an accommodation.

A.

Ms. Polk was fired for seeking

to

protect

parents’

fundamental right to direct

the upbringing and mental

health decision-making for

their children.

As was true of the injunction reinstated in

Mirabelli, 607 U.S. at 497. Ms. Polk’s requested

accommodation from MCPS’s Parental Secrecy Policy

“promotes child safety by guaranteeing fit parents a

role in some of the most consequential decisions in

their children’s lives.” Respondents claim that

MCPS’s policy advances student safety. To the

contrary, “those policies cut out the primary

protectors of children’s best interests: their parents.”

11

Id. (citing Troxel, 530 U.S. at 68–69). This Court

emphasized that the fundamental parental right to

direct the upbringing and education of their children

includes the right to receive information necessary for

parents to exercise their rights when their children

exhibit signs of gender dysphoria at school. Id.

Under

long-established

precedent,

parents—not the State—have primary

authority with respect to “the upbringing

and education of children.” Pierce v.

Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534–535,

45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925);

accord, Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390,

399–400, 43 S.Ct. 625, 67 L.Ed. 1042

(1923). The right protected by these

precedents includes the right not to be

shut out of participation in decisions

regarding their children’s mental health.

Parham v. J. R., 442 U.S. 584, 602, 99

S.Ct. 2493, 61 L.Ed.2d 101 (1979).

Gender dysphoria is a condition that has

an important bearing on a child’s mental

health, but when a child exhibits

symptoms of gender dysphoria at school,

California’s

policies

conceal

that

information from parents and facilitate a

degree of gender transitioning during

school hours. These policies likely violate

parents’ rights to direct the upbringing

and education of their children.

Id. (emphasis added). As is true with MCPS,

“California prohibits its public schools from informing

parents of their child’s gender transition at school

12

unless the child consents. The record in this case

indicates that the State’s non-disclosure policy applies

even if parents expressly ask for information about

their child’s gender identification.” Id. at 499.

(Barrett, J., concurring). Depriving parents of the

information regarding their child’s “gender identity”

at school “quite obviously excludes parents from

highly important decisions about their child’s mental

health.” Id. Ipso facto, parents are unable to exercise

their fundamental right to make decisions about their

child’s upbringing, including their mental health, as

established by this Court for more than 100 years.

Pierce, 268 U.S. at 534–535; Parham, 442 U.S. at

602. 3

While dissenting from the decision in Mirabelli

based on its procedural posture, Justice Kagan

confirmed that “parents have rights, even though

unenumerated, concerning their children and the life

choices they make.” Id. at 507 (Kagan, J. dissenting)

(citing Pierce, 268 U.S. at 534–535; Parham, 442 U.S.

at 602–603). “California's policy, in depriving all

parents of information critical to their children’s

health and well-being, could have crossed the

constitutional line. And that would entitle the

parents, at the end of the day, to relief.” Id. The same

is true of MCPS’s Parental Secrecy Policy that also

The Ninth Circuit has recognized the likelihood that the

parental exclusion policy analyzed in Mirabelli likely violates

parents fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their

children by issuing an injunction against implementation of

California’s AB 1955 which codified the parental exclusion

policies addressed in Mirabelli. City of Huntington Beach v.

Newsom, 2026 WL 1785110 (9th Circuit Case # 25-3826 June 18,

2026).

3

13

deprives all parents of information critical to their

children’s health and well-being.

Ms. Polk’s requested exemption from the

Parental Secrecy Policy would protect those longestablished constitutional rights and concomitantly,

the best interests of the district’s students. Instead of

championing those rights on behalf of the best

interests of their student charges, Respondents are

directing teachers like Ms. Polk to violate those rights.

This Court should grant the Petition and reverse.

B.

Ms. Polk acted to protect

parents’ fundamental right to

direct

the

religious

upbringing of their children.

In Mirabelli, this Court addressed the same type

of Parental Secrecy Policy implemented by MCPS. In

that case, California education officials had adopted

statewide guidelines that prohibited teachers from

notifying parents when their children asserted a

discordant gender identity at school. This Court

concluded that as well as likely violating parents’

right to direct mental health decision-making,

California’s policies also likely violated the parents’

free exercise right to guide the religious development

of their children under Mahmoud, 606 U.S. at 559.

Mirabelli, 607 U.S. at 496.

The parents who assert a free exercise

claim have sincere religious beliefs about

sex and gender, and they feel a religious

obligation to raise their children in

accordance

with

those

beliefs.

California's policies violate those beliefs

14

and “impos[e] the kind of burden on

religious exercise that [Wisconsin v.]

Yoder [406 U.S. 205 (1972)] found

unacceptable.” [Mahmoud,] 606 U.S., at

550, 145 S. Ct. 2332. Indeed, the

intrusion on parents’ free exercise rights

here—unconsented facilitation of a

child's gender transition—is greater

than the introduction of LGBTQ

storybooks we considered sufficient to

trigger strict scrutiny in Mahmoud. See

id., at 563, 145 S. Ct. 2332.

Id. The same is true of the Parental Secrecy Policy,

which also “cut[s] out the primary protectors of

children's best interests: their parents.” Id. In

addition, as was true of the California policy examined

in Mirabelli, the policy here provides for an

unconsented facilitation of a child’s “gender

transition” that is even more intrusive of parents’ free

exercise rights than was the MCPS “LGBTQinclusive” book policy analyzed in Mahmoud. Id.

Consequently, the Parental Secrecy Policy here, like

the California parental secrecy policy in Mirabelli,

likely unconstitutionally burdens parents’ free

exercise. 607 U.S. at 497.

The Parental Secrecy Policy’s ban on sharing

information regarding a child’s assertion of a

discordant identity with parents (unless the child

consents) “carries with it precisely the kind of

objective danger to the free exercise of religion that

the First Amendment was designed to prevent.”

Mahmoud, 606 U.S. at 546. “At its heart, the Free

Exercise Clause of the First Amendment protects ‘the

ability of those who hold religious beliefs of all kinds

15

to live out their faiths in daily life through the

performance of’ religious acts. And for many people of

faith across the country, there are few religious acts

more important than the religious education of their

children.” Id. (citing Kennedy v. Bremerton School

Dist. 597 U.S. 507, 524 (2022)). “Indeed, for many

Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others, the religious

education of children is not merely a preferred

practice but rather a religious obligation.” Id. at 547

(citing Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. MorrisseyBerru, 591 U.S. 732, 754-56 (2020)).

Parents’ right to direct their children’s religious

upbringing encompasses not just teaching religion at

home, but “extends to the choices that parents wish to

make for their children outside the home,” including

educational choices such as enrolling their children in

MCPS. See, id. “The right of parents to direct the

religious upbringing of their” children would be an

empty promise if it did not follow those children into

the public school classroom. We have thus recognized

limits on the government's ability to interfere with a

student's religious upbringing in a public school

setting.” Id. Those limits include not mandating that

children be exposed to books that conflict with their

parents’ religious beliefs, id., and not compelling

secrecy when children assert a discordant identity,

Mirabelli, 607 U.S. at 496, and this case.

As this Court held in Mahmoud, providing

accommodations for religious objectors, such as opt

outs from curriculum for parents, preserve parents’

constitutional rights while permitting the school

district to continue carrying out its pedagogical

purpose. 606 U.S. at 568. “It must be emphasized that

what the parents seek here is not the right to

16

micromanage the public school curriculum, but rather

to have their children opt out of a particular

educational requirement that burdens their wellestablished right ‘to direct ‘the religious upbringing’ of

their children.’” Id.

Similarly here, Ms. Polk’s accommodation

would respect parents’ roles as primary protectors

while also serving the state’s compelling interest in

student safety and privacy. It would also preserve her

free exercise rights.

Ms. Polk is not threatening to use

biological pronouns or to harass

transgender students. She has merely

asked for reasonable accommodations

that would allow students to self-identify

however they choose while still

respecting Ms. Polk's convictions. Many

such alternatives exist, and Ms. Polk

referenced some. The most obvious

solution would be to permit Ms. Polk to

call all students by their last name (e.g.,

“Bueller, please answer question 43.”).

In light of this easy “win-win” for

teachers and school districts, the result

of the interest balancing is as obvious as

if MCPS were playing seesaw with a lead

block.

Polk, 166 F4th at 425 (Wilkinson, J., dissenting)

(citation omitted). This Court should accept review

and reverse.

17

III.

MCPS’s Parental Secrecy Policy is an

unconstitutional presumptive procedure

based on the statist notion that

governmental authority should supersede

parental authority because some parents

are found to abuse their children.

MCPS’s Parental Secrecy Policy is contrary to

this Court’s long-standing presumption that “fit

parents act in the best interests of their children.”

Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 68 (2000) (plurality),

This presumption can be overcome only by a judicial

finding that the parents are not acting in their child’s

best interest, Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 768769 (1982), or “[i]n an emergency situation.” Mueller

v. Auker, 700 F.3d 1180, 1187 (9th Cir. 2012). Parental

unfitness cannot be presumed categorically as MCPS

does with its Parental Secrecy Policy. Stanley v.

Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 657 (1972). Presumed parental

fitness is not overcome simply because a child

disagrees with her parents’ decision. Parham, 442

U.S. at 603.

Contradicting Parham, MCPS is unilaterally

upending the parental fitness presumption based on

MCPS’s perception that there is a disagreement

between parents and children. Its Parental Secrecy

Policy empowers children to supersede their parents’

authority if the parents do not agree with the

children’s assertion of a discordant identity. MCPS

presumes that parents who might disagree with their

children are “unsafe” and incapable of making

appropriate decisions—medical and otherwise—for

their children. MCPS officials assume that only

parents who believe in and approve of the concept of

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“gender identity” are capable of effectively helping

their children cope with gender dysphoria or any other

mental distress that may be causing them to want to

be perceived as something other than their sex.

Parents are prevented from exploring the causes of

their children’s sex rejection and helping them accept

their natural bodies. Instead, parents are secretly

presumed abusive in absentia without due process or

a judicial finding while the school cements with their

children the harmful notion that they are born in the

wrong body.

MCPS has adopted a “procedure by

presumption” that is repugnant to the Constitution.

Stanley, 405 U.S. at 656-657. “Procedure by

presumption is always cheaper and easier than

individualized determination. But when, as here, the

procedure forecloses the determinative issues of

competence and care, when it explicitly disdains

present realities...it needlessly risks running

roughshod over the important interests of both parent

and child. It therefore cannot stand.” Id. The same is

true here. MCPS’s nonconsensual deprivation of

parental rights to guide their child through an

identity crisis without due process runs roughshod

over the important interests of parent and child and

cannot stand.

Instead of adhering to the presumption that

“natural bonds of affection lead parents to act in the

best interests of their children,” MCPS has adopted

the constitutionally repugnant “statist notion that

governmental power should supersede parental

authority in all cases because some parents abuse and

neglect children.” Parham, 442 U.S. at 602-603

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(emphasis in original). MCPS’s statist notion is to

create a state-dictated treatment of children who

reject their sex and force parents to accept that their

children are “transgender” and affirm that the sexrejecting identity is natural, consistent with their

religious beliefs, and in the child’s best interest. “The

Due Process Clause does not permit a state to infringe

on the fundamental right of parents to make the child

rearing decision simply because [the government]

believes a ‘better decision’ could be made.” Troxel, 530

U.S. at 72-73. Yet that is precisely what MCPS has

done in enacting its Parental Secrecy Policy.

MCPS’s statist notion is particularly

antithetical to parental rights in the context of

children asserting a discordant identity. As discussed

supra, social transitioning, i.e., the use of opposite

gender names, pronouns and privacy facilities at

school, is the first in a series of controversial

interventions for children who reject their sex.

Skrmetti, 605 U.S. at 525. The “fierce scientific and

policy debates” surrounding the interventions “raise

sincere concerns; the implications for all are

profound.” Id. That fact alone makes clear that

parental involvement in decision-making about this

fundamental aspect of their child’s upbringing is

essential. MCPS deprives parents of that critical

constitutional right.

In refusing to participate in MCPS’s Parental

Secrecy Policy, Ms. Polk is rejecting the presumption

that parents will not act in the best interest of their

children and, instead, is buttressing parents’

fundamental rights to make mental health decisions

and direct the religious upbringing of their children.

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MCPS’s termination of Ms. Polk’s employment

facilitates infringement of parents’ fundamental

constitutional rights and should not be permitted to

stand.

.

CONCLUSION

MCPS’s Parental Secrecy Policy contradicts

this Court’s decisions in Mirabelli and Mahmoud and

is an unconstitutional procedure based on the statist

notion that MCPS can make a better decision about

children’s mental health than can their parents.

Ms. Polk should be applauded, not terminated,

for seeking an accommodation to not deprive parents

of their fundamental constitutional rights at a time

when they are most exigent.

This Court should grant the Petition to

preserve parental rights and children’s health.

July 31, 2026

Respectfully Submitted,

MARY E. MCALISTER

Counsel of Record

VERNADETTE R. BROYLES

CHILD & PARENTAL RIGHTS CAMPAIGN

5425 Peachtree Pkwy, Suite 110

Norcross, GA 30092

(770) 448-4525

mmcalister@childparentrights.org

C. ERIN FRIDAY

OUR DUTY - USA

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P.O. BOX 442

San Carlos, CA 94070

Counsel for Amici Curiae