Federal judge threatens to sanction California for 'misleading' him in 'gender secrecy' case

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has repeatedly slurred a federal judge by name, echoing President Trump's history of diatribes against judges even before the current Democrat started copying the former Democrat's social media style and insulting nicknames.

The perceived contender for the 2028 Democratic nomination for president may cluck his tongue again when he sees the latest order from U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez in a lawsuit against The Golden State's alleged mandate on school districts to hide from parents their children's asserted gender identity at odds with sex.

The President George W. Bush nominee ordered state Attorney General Rob Bonta and the California Department of Education to "show cause" on why they should not be sanctioned for "misleading" Benitez so he would remove them from the suit by teachers who allege their school district muzzled them and parents of "gender incongruent children."

The state defendants' motions to dismiss and opposition to the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment claimed that CDE had "withdrawn and conclusively replaced" an FAQ page that contained the challenged policies, which they claimed was the "only basis" for being named defendants and thus made the case moot, Benitez wrote.

"However, evidence demonstrates that the CDE may have merely moved the challenged content of the FAQ page to a new, required 'PRISM' training module," as documented by the plaintiffs' lawyers at the Thomas More Society, the judge said, ordering state defendants to explain their behavior Nov. 17 in court.

"From day one, officials from the local school district all the way to the governor’s mansion have tried to deflect responsibility" but "have now been caught not only lying to California taxpayers but attempting to mislead the Court to escape accountability," TMS Executive Vice President Peter Breen said in a statement.

Asked for its response to the accusations, Bonta's office told Just the News to contact "our client" CDE with questions, despite the fact that Bonta's name is all over the filings in the docket. CDE did not answer a query.

It's the latest setback for state leaders in the case, in which Benitez has repeatedly sided with the plaintiffs. 

He certified a class and four subclasses last month to challenge the so-called gender secrecy policies, denied motions to dismiss by the state defendants and the original plaintiffs' school district and protected those teachers from recriminations after they sued. Benitez will also consider summary judgment motions at a hearing next week.

Allegedly told teachers federal law means opposite of what it says

The society filed an application for sanctions Friday, pointing to a California Family Council article Nov. 3 on the new PRISM teacher training that includes a screenshot of a slide with "language very similar to the FAQ page" that the CDE took down.

The article links to a recording of a PRISM training, which it dubs an "LGBTQ 'Loyalty Test,'" that CFC describes as part of a curriculum mandated by the California Safe and Supportive Schools Act, developed in consultation with LGBTQ advocacy groups including the ACLU, Trevor Project and California Teachers Association.

The training, which some school board members and parents told CFC they had trouble accessing in full, says schools cannot disclose a student is "LGBTQI+ to anyone without their permission, including their parents," and that students "have the right to control to what extent and to whom" their gender identity is disclosed.

It makes explicit that school staff cannot tell parents if their children identify as the opposite sex, because they still have "a reasonable expectation of privacy" even if they are open about their gender identity at school. Schools can only disclose this to parents in "limited circumstances" such as "issues involving safety or wellness."

CFC said the training also falsely characterized the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act in a test at the end of the training, claiming it forbids schools from sharing a child’s gender identity with parents when FERPA actually "protects parents’ right to access their child’s records, not the state’s right to withhold them."

The application for sanctions says the plaintiffs obtained "another short video" showing Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond "introducing the PRISM training," whose wording closely tracks the original FAQ page's emphasis on "rare exceptions" and a "specific and compelling 'need to know'" to disclose gender identity.

The state defendants refused to even specify what "need to know" means in their responses to the plaintiffs' legal discovery requests, known as interrogatories, the application says. 

"It is not possible to speculate about every potential scenario where it might be warranted to disclose a pupil’s gender nonconforming status" without permission, the state defendants wrote, conflating the rejection of sex stereotypes with identification as the opposite sex. They would need "specific facts" to decide if nonconsensual disclosure was warranted.

By moving the muzzling content "to a new location, difficult for Plaintiffs to obtain access to, but which all teachers would ultimately be required to read," the state defendants have committed "an egregious attempt to mislead the Court," the application says.

While taking down the FAQ page left school districts "in a state of ambiguity" rather than confirming they could disclose gender identity to parents without student permission, the state defendants tried to play it both ways, "affirmatively telling school districts that Parental Exclusion Policies were legally required, while arguing mootness to this Court."