Summary of facts: An Ohio school district issued a policy under which students are punished if they do not use other students’ “preferred pronouns.” A group of parents and students sued in federal district court, arguing that the policy violates the students’ First Amendment right to freedom of speech and parents’ Fourteenth Amendment right to direct the upbringing of their children. The parents filed a motion for a preliminary injunction ordering the school district to grant an exemption to its policy for children who believe that an individual’s sex is immutable. The court denied the motion, holding that the policy did not violate the Constitution. The plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. A 3-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit affirmed, reasoning that religious students have no First Amendment right to use “non-preferred pronouns” to refer to students who identify as “transgender” because it could hurt their feelings and “substantially disrupt” school activities. The parents asked the full Sixth Circuit to rehear the case, and the court agreed. 

RFI’s position: For students who belong to minority religions such as Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism and who hold that sex is binary and immutable, the school district’s policy burdens their religion because it forces them to choose between obeying their religiously informed conscience and affirming the government’s ideological position. The policy will also have a disproportionate impact on families of minority religions because they tend to face the most pressure to conform to the values endorsed by school officials, and they often lack alternatives to public education. The full court of appeals should rehear this case and reverse the district court decision.