The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from two Massachusetts parents who say a public school socially transitioned their middle-school-aged child without telling them, leaving intact a lower court ruling that treats the school's conduct as a routine administrative decision rather than a violation of parental rights.
Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri, parents of a child identified in court papers as B.F., had asked the justices to take up their case after every lower court turned them away. The Court's denial, issued without a published opinion, means that in the states covered by the 1st Circuit, public schools can use a student's preferred name and pronouns, encourage a social gender transition, and keep parents in the dark, all without running afoul of the Constitution.
The case, docketed as No. 25-77, is the latest in a string of parental-rights disputes the Court has declined to resolve on the merits, even as three sitting justices have warned that the underlying legal question demands an answer.
The dispute began when B.F., a student at a public school in Ludlow, Massachusetts, started raising questions about gender identity and began seeing a therapist. Silvestri instructed school officials not to have private discussions with the child so the family could address mental health concerns "as a family and with the proper professionals."
The school did not comply. B.F. declared in an email to school officials, "I am genderqueer," and asked teachers to use a new name and "any pronouns (other than it/its)." The parents say the school began socially transitioning B.F. without their knowledge or consent, rejecting their explicit request to be kept informed.
Foote and Silvestri filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Ludlow School Committee and school officials in 2022, arguing the school was "pushing beliefs concerning gender ideology behind the parents' backs and encouraging their children to question their own identity." A federal district court dismissed the case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit affirmed that dismissal in a unanimous decision issued in February 2025.
The three-judge panel framed the school's actions not as a medical or ideological intervention but as garden-variety classroom management. The court wrote:
"The measures the Parents cite... all involve decisions by Ludlow's staff about how to reasonably meet diverse student needs within the school setting."
The panel went further, declaring that "The Supreme Court has never suggested that parents have the right to control a school's curricular or administrative decisions." It found that parents cannot invoke the Constitution's Due Process Clause to "create a preferred educational experience for their child in public school."
That reasoning collapses a significant distinction. There is a difference between a parent who objects to a textbook and a parent who explicitly asks a school not to make decisions about a child's identity and mental health behind closed doors. The 1st Circuit treated both as the same species of complaint, and the Supreme Court, by declining to hear the case, let that framing stand.
The school board and local officials, for their part, told the Court that "the policy at heart of the case does not exist." They argued that school officials were simply implementing state policies and guidance in response to B.F.'s own requests about preferred name and pronouns. Their brief in opposition stated bluntly: "The Court should deny the petition here because it has been asked to render an advisory opinion on a policy that does not exist."
That claim, no formal policy, just ad hoc compliance with state guidance, is itself revealing. If no written policy governs how schools handle a child's gender transition behind parents' backs, then there is no policy for parents to challenge, no rule to appeal, and no accountability mechanism at all. The school gets to act without a policy and then hide behind the absence of one.
The state guidance at issue comes from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. It acknowledges that "some transgender and gender nonconforming students are not openly so at home for reasons such as safety concerns or lack of acceptance." On that basis, it encourages school employees to speak with the student first before discussing gender identity or transgender status with parents, and to discuss with the child how the school should refer to them in communications with the family.
In practice, this means a government employee decides, based on a child's say-so, whether a parent can be trusted with information about their own child's identity and mental health. The guidance does not require evidence of abuse or neglect. It does not involve a court order or a social worker's investigation. It simply presumes that a child's reluctance to tell a parent is sufficient grounds for the state to insert itself between parent and child.
The internal workings of the Supreme Court remain opaque in cases like this, where the justices decline a petition without explanation. But the silence is not total.
In October, when the Court declined a different parental-rights case brought by two Colorado families, Justice Samuel Alito issued a statement joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. Alito called the issue of parents' rights in the context of school gender-transition policies one of "great and growing national importance."
Three justices out of nine is not enough to grant certiorari, that requires four votes. But the statement was a clear signal that at least some members of the Court recognize that lower courts are building a body of precedent that could permanently diminish parental authority over children's welfare in public schools.
Alito and Thomas have signaled they plan to remain on the bench, which means their votes on this issue are not going anywhere. But unless a fourth justice joins them, the Court will continue to let circuit courts define the boundaries of parental rights one dismissal at a time.
In their petition, lawyers from Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative legal organization representing Foote and Silvestri, cited Supreme Court rulings dating back to the 1920s that reaffirm parents' right to make decisions about the upbringing of their children. They wrote in their filing:
"Petitioners do not have a religious objection to their school district's indoctrination and transition of their children without their knowledge. Theirs is a moral belief, backed by well-supported scientific opinion, that a so-called gender transition harms their children. But their constitutional rights to direct the upbringing of their children remain just as fundamental."
Jim Campbell, chief counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, called Monday's denial "a missed opportunity to defend parental rights."
The Court's refusal to take the Foote case fits a pattern. In October, it turned away the Colorado families' case. In December, it declined a similar case from Wisconsin. A Florida case raising comparable issues remains pending before the justices.
The one area where the Court has acted is California. In March, the justices blocked a California law that prevents school districts from requiring teachers to notify parents if their child seeks to use different pronouns, keeping that law on hold while litigation continues. And last year, the Court ruled that Maryland parents have the right to opt elementary-aged children out of instruction involving storybooks with LGBTQ themes.
Those actions suggest the Court is willing to intervene when a state actively prohibits parental notification or forces objectionable material on families. But when a school quietly transitions a child behind a parent's back under the cover of bureaucratic guidance, the justices have so far looked the other way.
The parents in the Ludlow case said that more than 1,000 school districts nationwide have adopted policies where parents are not informed about gender identity matters involving their children. Whether that figure is precise or approximate, the trend it describes is real and accelerating. Every circuit court ruling that goes unchallenged by the Supreme Court gives another school district cover to act without parental consent.
The Court's docket is packed with consequential cases this term, and the justices have wide discretion over which petitions to accept. But discretion is not the same as wisdom. The question of whether a public school can secretly facilitate a child's gender transition over a parent's explicit objection is not a niche policy dispute. It goes to the core of who has authority over a child's welfare, the family or the state.
The 1st Circuit answered that question clearly: the school. The Supreme Court, by its silence, let that answer stand.
The pending Florida case may give the justices another chance to weigh in. Alliance Defending Freedom and other organizations will continue to press the issue in federal courts. State legislatures in red states have moved to require parental notification, but those laws do nothing for families in Massachusetts, California, or other blue states where the bureaucratic apparatus is built to exclude parents from the conversation.
For Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri, the legal road has ended. They asked their child's school to keep them informed. The school refused. They asked the courts to enforce their rights as parents. Every court said no. They asked the Supreme Court to settle the question. The Court walked away.
When the government decides it knows better than parents, and the courts refuse to check that presumption, the word for it isn't progressive. It's paternalism, aimed at the wrong people.
