Luke Berg of Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), the law firm working with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) on this case, says they represent four parents suing the Kettle Moraine School District near Milwaukee.
"Two of those parents discovered through personal experience that the school has a policy allowing minor students to change their gender identity at school to adopt a new name and change their gender pronouns over the parents' objection," the attorney details.
Earlier this year, WILL sent the school district a letter asking it to change the policy.
"They basically blew us off, and so now it's a lawsuit," says Berg. "The goal of the lawsuit primarily is to force the district to change its policy, to defer to parents on this significant issue."
American Family News contacted the Kettle Moraine School District and was told the school "cannot comment on pending litigation."
"This is actually a situation that is happening all over the country right now," notes Berg. "In the past five or six years, school districts around the country have begun implementing policies like this, taking the position that this is a decision that minor students can make on their own without parental involvement, even in secret from parents in some circumstances."
WILL and ADF filed another lawsuit on this topic in 2019 against a Madison, Wisconsin school district, one that had a policy allowing students to transition at school while also directing staff to hide it from parents by calling the student one thing in class and another when parents were present.
"Since we filed that case two years ago, we've heard lots of examples from around the country of other school districts adopting similar policies," says Berg.
He calls these polices "incredibly significant," as they take a major mental health issue over which there is a lot of disagreement in the mental health community about how to respond appropriately.
"They take it out of parents' hands, and that can do long-term damage to kids," the attorney concludes.
