The Murphy Administration has won round one in the battle over the fate of parental rights in New Jersey schools. On Friday, Monmouth County Superior Court Judge David F. Bauman issued an injunction which retrains three school districts – Middletown, Manalapan and Marlboro – from notifying parents when a “transgender” child wants to use a name, pronouns, or bathroom that doesn’t correspond with their children.
“The state has demonstrated a reasonable probability of success on its claim that the Amended Policies, if implemented, will have a disparate impact on transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary youth,” Judge Bauman wrote in his opinion.
A deputy attorney general made the incredible and stomach-churning claim during oral argument that even a 5-year-old could make such a decision and the parent would have no right to be notified by school staff.
“Maybe a trans student feels school is a safe haven for them… a safe harbor,” Bauman mused. “What do you say to that?”
“I would say to that: we don’t believe in keeping secrets from parents,” replied Marlboro Attorney Marc Zitomer.
The case-in-chief will now proceed through the discovery phase, but with the state-requested injunction now in place, New Jersey parents enter a new school year in a matter of weeks with greatly diminished authority to play a central role in their own kids’ lives. Bauman noted in his opinion that he is “not rendering any final judgments or determinations as to the merits of either the State or the School Boards’ claims” at this time.
