O’Bservations: Monday, October 7, 2024
Good evening.
There are times when writing this report that I actually feel like I’m back in the news business.
This is one of them. I have fresh news on a significant court decision involving the Mt. Lebanon School District.
As regular readers of this column know, the district was sued in federal court way back in June 2022 by three courageous moms.
The moms took issue with a teacher at Jefferson Elementary School who’d told her first-grade children during class time that their gender at birth could be wrong. It was an egregious example of an activist teacher putting her agenda ahead of children’s welfare, and activist administrators in the district putting “teacher prerogative” ahead of common decency, common sense, and common Christian conviction.
I’d expected that when I notified the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (my former employer, for 25 years) that the judge overseeing the case had ruled in favor of the plaintiff parents on summary judgment, the paper would jump on it asap.
Silly me! I forgot that journalists don’t do journalism any more. Especially when it involves reporting on outcomes they disagree with. (As of this writing, nothing has yet appeared in the PG online or in print on the judge’s decision.)
In any event, here’s the scoop.
A week ago, Joy Flowers Conti, the senior federal judge in the Western Pennsylvania district court who oversaw the lengthy school court case, issued her decision.
Until the judge’s ruling, the teacher’s own personal and subjective standard of gender fluidity and identity was the only acceptable pedagogy on transgender instruction in the Mt. Lebanon School District. When parents objected, administrators treated the parents as religious fanatics, and backed the teacher’s conduct without question or inquiry. The three moms then filed a federal lawsuit, claiming their constitutional rights were violated.
It was a David vs. Goliath legal contest which ended, incredibly, in ignominious and embarrassing defeat for the school district. By issuing a summary judgment, Judge Conti said there was no need for a trial because there was nothing for a jury to decide.
As a matter of law, the judge writes in her opinion that the district and its attorneys didn’t understand the law as applied and interpreted in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (based in Philadelphia, which includes Western Pennsylvania).
A lawsuit that got scant local attention ended abruptly (local news outlets have ignored it almost entirely). Ironically, a case the school district dealt with dismissively – it twice asked the judge to dismiss the complaint – turned out to be a huge win for parental, religious and constitutional rights in public schools.
Summary judgment was entered in favor of all three plaintiffs and against the teacher, three administrators and the district itself. There were no financial penalties asked for or assessed, but the district will likely be held liable for all of the plaintiffs’ attorney fees and costs.
As part of her ruling on Sept. 30, Judge Conti issued a meticulous 94-page opinion that is must reading for anyone concerned with the drift towards radical activism that now pervades many public schools (including our own). Within the 94 pages are the cultural signposts of our modern times.
The opinion describes a community that I don’t quite recognize anymore. Before this lawsuit was filed, it never would have occurred to me that the school district I once trusted, which educated all three of my children, had moved in the radical direction it has.
Nor are the practices described in the opinion limited to only Jefferson Elementary School.
On page 28, Judge Conti notes that the principal at Foster Elementary School – the same school my own children once attended, and my grandson would attend if he weren’t going to our church academy – notified a district administrator that two of his first-grade teachers had read the same transgender transitioning books that the teacher in question at Jefferson had read.
The administrator who supervised elementary education in the district (Marybeth Irvin, one of the administrators who was cited by Judge Conti for summary judgment) wasn’t concerned, according to her own testimony, and asked no further questions.
I have fond memories of Foster. My wife and I used to gather with the former school principal – Barbara Float, a devout and faithful woman – to pray with her for Foster’s students and teachers. Though that was 30 or so years ago, when our children were attending Foster, it might as well have been an eon ago.
It’s inconceivable to me that the school district would tolerate a principal today who prayed with parents.
To state the obvious, there is a different ethos in the district now. On the school board at least, if you cling to your Bible, you are considered deplorable and decidedly persona non grata.
This transition of America – from true tolerance to a widespread embrace of cancel culture, in both urban and suburban settings, even in an outwardly friendly place like Mt. Lebanon that supposedly espouses tolerance – has been well documented by academics on the fringes of the academy, where the transition is most radical.
Theologian Carl Trueman, of Grove City College, has written persuasively on the role “expressive individualism” plays now in the social dynamic of towns like Mt. Lebanon. Tolerance and inclusivity mean not just living quietly and peacefully as a trans person, but changing the pronoun usage of everyone else to conform to your expressive identity. Nothing less is not showing sufficient “tolerance.”
Consider what happened in a Virginia public school district. The school board just agreed to pay $575,000, after years of litigation, to settle with a high school French teacher whose employment was terminated in 2018 for refusing to use male pronouns for a transgender student.
Peter Vlaming had tried to avoid pronouns altogether and used the student’s preferred name, but was fired after “accidentally” using a feminine pronoun. Vlaming sued, and the Viriginia Supreme Court ruled that his rights were violated.
“I was wrongfully fired from my teaching job because my religious beliefs put me on a collision course with school administrators who mandated that teachers ascribe to only one perspective on gender identity – their preferred view,” Vlaming said. He was represented in his lawsuit by the Alliance Defending Freedom.
“I loved teaching French and gracefully tried to accommodate every student in my class, but I couldn’t say something that directly violated my conscience.”
In the Mt. Lebanon School District case, Judge Conti in her opinion dismisses the “kindness, tolerance and respect” argument so prevalent among transgender activists.
“There is no evidence in this [court] record of bullying, unkindness or disrespect toward transgender students in the elementary school attended by the children of Plaintiffs,” Judge Conti writes on page 2. “This case involves different beliefs about gender identity.”
The plaintiff parents objected to a teacher’s instruction that a boy can choose to become a girl, or vice versa. One parent was Roman Catholic, a second Mormon, and the third religiously unaffiliated but morally motivated. Of the three moms, only one still lives in the district. According to her attorney, she continues to be ostracized and cancelled by some in the community.
“The Parents disagree that gender is a subjective, individual choice. They assert that gender is objective, immutable and determined by God and biology,” Judge Conti writes.
On page 19, Judge Conti relates a telling exchange which presaged the controversy.
On Oct. 1, 2021, six months before the events occurred which triggered the lawsuit, a Mt. Lebanon parent (“not a party to this case”) wondered how Jefferson Elementary School might memorialize LBGTQ month after reading about it in the school newsletter. The parent asked in an email to the school principal: “I was wondering if/how this is acknowledged in the first grade because I am not comfortable with my daughter learning about gender identity at this age.”
Brett Bielewicz, the school principal, replied: “There is no formal introduction or lessons surrounding it at [Jefferson Elementary School], especially in 1st grade. It’s just merely an acknowledgment of inclusivity and awareness to our JES community.”
Nothing formal, but informally yes, as parents in the school would soon discover.
The events that triggered the lawsuit began on March 30, 2022, when Megan Williams, a former student in the district who teaches first grade at Jefferson Elementary School, sent a text to two fellow teachers which read: “Tomorrow is international trans day of visibility. I’d like to read something.”
She was acting on impulse born of personal circumstance. Williams’ child (a biological boy who was the same age as the first graders in her class) changed to using female pronouns the same week that Williams read two transgender books to her first-grade class on “international trans day.”
On that day, the books were read and discussed. If it had stopped there, Williams may have gotten away unscathed (as was the case for the teachers at Foster Elementary School who read the same books).
But after telling students that she’d like to bring her child to school in a month for Take Your Child to Work Day (which teachers were not permitted to do), Williams told students that her boy was now a girl, and she’d be wearing a dress to school. She then told the first graders “when children are born, parents make a guess whether they’re a boy or a girl. Sometimes parents are wrong.”
One confused child raised his hand and said: “But I’m a boy. I don’t want to be a girl.” The aide in the class testified that the student was “upset.” Williams responded, “Yes you are. Talk with your parents about that.”
In more than two years of litigation, the district (whose board president is himself an attorney) steadfastly maintained in repeated court filings that the parents not only had no case; they had no rights as parents to opt their first graders out of transgender instruction.
That argument – that “teacher prerogative” in the district trumped any and all parental rights – was specious, legal observers say. Judge Conti was equally skeptical.
She writes: “Throughout this litigation, [the district and its administrators] have taken the position that in a public school, parents have no constitutional right to notice or to opt their children out of any kind of instruction, regardless of the content of that instruction, the age of the children, or whether the instruction is part of the published school curriculum. …That is simply not the law within the Third Circuit.”
She continues: “Refusing to provide opt outs for parents who assert religious and fundamental parental rights objections to transgender instruction to young children, while providing notice and opt out rights for other sensitive secular and religious topics, constitutes disparate treatment and violates the Equal Protection clause.”
Though few local citizens seemingly know of the case (due to the news coverage blackout), what made it such a lightning rod is first graders were involved.
“Who decides how to determine a young child’s gender identity goes to the heart of parental decision-making authority on a matter of greatest importance,” Judge Conti writes.
She further observes: “Concerns about undercutting parental authority are heightened when the children are in first grade and the person trying to influence them is their teacher.”
And court testimony clearly demonstrated that teacher Williams was not the least bit repentant. She believed “I’m in the right here!” and “that she was free to instruct the young, captive students in her class in accordance with her beliefs without giving parents prior notice or an opportunity to opt their children out of that instruction,” Judge Conti writes.
In any other context, this would be called indoctrination. But because it occurred in a Mt. Lebanon public elementary school, and was a type of indoctrination the school board endorsed, it’s supposedly exhibiting “tolerance” and “respect.” That’s how the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette framed it in this column (in fairness to the PG, they did publish my rebuttal).
Of note, Judge Conti drew a sharp contrast with how principal Bielewicz dealt with the parents’ complaint when compared to another situation that arose at the school. When a German teacher told fifth-graders, “there’s always one mother and there’s always one father,” the innocuous comment triggered a full-scale investigation. Every student in the classroom who heard it was interviewed.
Williams’ violation, on the other hand, was not investigated by either Bielewicz or the district.
The judge writes: “Bielewicz characterized the Parents’ position as merely objecting to Williams’ reading books. … The adult aides in Williams’ classroom were not interviewed or consulted at all. … The administrators made public statements in support of Williams.”
This pattern of discrimination on transgender topics explains why the judge ruled as she did.
While parents were not provided any advance notice or the ability to opt their children out from Williams’ outburst on March 31, teachers within the district had on prior occasions provided advance notice and opt outs to students participating in routine activities, including: the Scripps Spelling Bee; dissecting animals in biology; viewing video clips from a television series involving a gay character; and an assembly featuring a therapy dog.
Returning to the chronology of events: when one of the plaintiff parents (Carmilla Tatel) met with school principal Bielewicz on April 5, 2022 to raise concerns about Williams’ conduct, he could not guarantee that Williams wouldn’t teach the transgender content again.
According to the court record, Bielewicz had sent an email to Williams the day before which read: “You got tons of support from top down – trust me!”
He was right. Incredibly, everyone in the chain of command – Assistant Superintendent Marybeth Irvin, Superintendent Timothy Steinhauer and School Board President Jacob Wyland – expressed public affirmation for Williams and her actions.
No one was disciplined then, nor even now (one shortcoming of the ruling, in my view). Williams and Bielewicz were undisciplined and still work at Jefferson. Steinhauer and Irvin have retired, while Wyland still heads the school board.
Until recently, Bielewicz’s public message as Jefferson principal read as follows: “I thank you in advance for allowing me the opportunity to ‘be the change we wish to see in our world!’”
As part of the judge’s ruling, change will finally be enforced on him and others in the district. After more than two years of litigation, Mt. Lebanon schools have been ordered to give parents advance notice and opt out of transgender instruction. The total cost of this fiasco to community taxpayers has not been revealed.
“We are pleased that Judge Conti did a detailed examination of the facts and the law, and confirmed what we have said from the start: parental rights and beliefs matter in public education and cannot be disregarded or ignored. We are hopeful the District now understands that and will act accordingly,” says the victorious Pittsburgh attorney David Berardinelli, who very ably represented the plaintiffs.
But will the Mt. Lebanon School District act accordingly in the future? The people who run it haven’t done anything sensible or truly tolerant since the start of this sad affair, so I have my doubts.
The district hasn’t yet said if it will appeal the decision, but modern standards of “tolerance” dictate that it may.
That’s my report on this subject. I will be filing my regular O’Bservations next week on another circus: our lamentable presidential campaign. I have thoughts on that and on the new Reagan film, too.
Until then, God bless.
Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash
The Parrhesians 