Attorneys for the Alliance Defending Freedom have filed suit against a Michigan school district on the behalf of a mother and father who allege that employees of the school district assisted the couple’s child, a middle schooler, in transitioning, and concealed the school’s actions in that process from the parents.

In the lawsuit, the Alliance Defending Freedom alleges that the school district assisted the child in transitioning by referring to her as a boy, and that the school district thus violated the Constitutional rights of the parents.

Explaining the situation, a press release put out by the Alliance Defending Freedom claims, “Dan and Jennifer Mead withdrew their daughter from the eighth grade at East Rockford Middle School in October 2022 after district employees, acting in compliance with Rockford Public School District policy, treated their daughter as a boy by referring to her by a masculine name and male pronouns without notifying the Meads or seeking their consent.”

Continuing, the press release argues that the school district’s employees violated the rights of the parents by concealing critical information about their child, saying, “Employees had altered the girl’s official records to remove references to the district’s actions before sending the records home. The Meads only discovered the district’s actions when an employee unintentionally failed to completely alter a report about their daughter before sharing it with them. By concealing this important information, the district violated the Meads’ fundamental parental rights. The U.S. Constitution protects their right as parents to make decisions about the upbringing, education, and health care of their children.”

ADF Senior Counsel Kate Anderson, director of ADF’s Center for Parental Rights, spoke about the situation as well, saying, “Parents, not the government, have the right to direct the upbringing, education, and health care of their children. Schools should never deliberately hide vital information from parents, yet that’s exactly what the Rockford Public School District did.”