Wailes v. Jefferson County Public Schools
Description: Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado is violating parents’ fundamental right to make decisions about the upbringing and education of their children. A school district policy directs that students should be “assigned to share overnight accommodations with other students that share the student’s gender identity” rather than rooming by sex, and the district refuses to give parents truthful, pertinent information about their children’s overnight accommodations, thus hampering parents’ ability to make informed decisions about their children’s education and privacy.
ADF asks CO court to halt school district policy that violates parents' rights
The following quote may be attributed to Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Kate Anderson, director of the ADF Center for Parental Rights, regarding a motion ADF attorneys filed Monday with the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado in Wailes v. Jefferson County Public Schools on behalf of three families asking the court to stop Jefferson County Public Schools from requiring their children to share beds, bedrooms, and shower facilities with students of the opposites sex on school-sponsored overnight trips. JeffCo’s policy of rooming students by gender identity rather than sex without prior notice or a sex-separated alternative violates the families’ free exercise, bodily privacy, and parental rights. The three families filed a federal lawsuit against the school district in September:
“Parents, not the government, have the right and duty to direct the upbringing and education of their children, and that includes making decisions to protect their child’s privacy. JeffCo currently asks students who identify as transgender to choose, with their parents, whether they will share accommodations with students of the same or opposite sex. This is done confidentially, without divulging the private information of any other student. Yet JeffCo rooms all other children based on gender identity without giving those students or their parents the same information or choice. That policy violates parents’ right to direct their children’s care and protect their privacy. It violates students’ rights to bodily privacy. And it threatens the religious freedom of parents and students alike. JeffCo must provide parents with the information they need to make the best decisions for their children. We urge the court to grant our clients’ reasonable request for equal treatment and protect their constitutional freedoms as this case continues in the courts.”
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
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ABOUT Kate Anderson
Kate Anderson serves as senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, where she is the director of the Center for Parental Rights. In this role, she leads the team working to ensure schools respect the role of parents in directing the upbringing, education, and health care of their children. In 2023, Anderson, together with allied attorneys, successfully defended parents in Wisconsin, and her team is actively engaged in many other states and courts protecting the fundamental rights of parents. Anderson's work at ADF began in 2015, focusing on protecting the conscience rights of individuals being unjustly compelled to forfeit their beliefs under threat of government retaliation, heavy fines, or other punishment. Prior to joining ADF, Anderson was an associate attorney with Ellis, Li & McKinstry, PLLC, in Seattle, where she litigated both civil and criminal cases. She obtained her law degree magna cum laude in 2009 from Gonzaga University School of Law, where she served on the Gonzaga Law Review . She is admitted to the state bars of Arizona and Washington, the U.S. Supreme Court, and several federal district and appellate courts.