PRESS RELEASE: DFI Urges Supreme Court to Protect Parental Rights and Teachers’ Free Speech in Montgomery County Public Schools Case

WASHINGTON — The Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies (DFI) filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in Polk v. Montgomery County Public Schools, urging the Court to hear a challenge to school district policies that require teachers to use students’ preferred pronouns while concealing students’ gender transitions from their parents.

The case was brought by Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) teacher Kimberly Polk, who challenged district guidelines requiring employees to use names and pronouns based on a student’s asserted gender identity and, in some circumstances, withhold that information from the student’s parents. Polk made a request to the district that, when a student’s preferred pronouns conflict with biological sex, she be allowed to refer to the student by last name instead. MCPS rejected that request.

DFI’s brief argues that the case gives the Supreme Court an opportunity to provide definitive guidance on two fundamental constitutional protections including a parent’s right to participate in significant decisions affecting their children and a teacher’s First Amendment right to free speech.

“Montgomery County cannot require teachers to keep parents in the dark about consequential decisions involving their own children, nor can it compel teachers to use non-curricular speech that conflicts with their sincerely held beliefs,” said Don Daugherty, Senior Litigation Counsel at DFI. “The Supreme Court has already made clear that schools must respect the rights of parents and the limits the First Amendment places on compelled speech. This case gives the Court the opportunity to make those protections permanent.”

The brief builds on two recent interim Supreme Court decisions addressing the constitutional issues at stake.

In Mirabelli v. Bonta, the Court rejected an effort to allow school policies concealing students’ gender transitions from parents to remain in effect, explaining that parental rights include the right not to be excluded from decisions concerning their children’s mental health and upbringing.

The brief also points to the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in U.S. Department of Education v. Louisiana, which left in place lower court injunctions against the Biden administration’s Title IX regulations. Those courts concluded, among other things, that requiring teachers and students to use pronouns based on gender identity implicated constitutionally protected speech.

Polk v MCPS marks yet another clash between MCPS and parents following the Supreme Court’s landmark 2025 ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor. In that case, the Court ruled that MCPS could not deny parents notice and the opportunity to opt their children out of instruction that conflicted with their religious beliefs. DFI filed an amicus brief in that case and was asked to testify before a U.S. House of Representatives Education and Workforce Subcommittee hearing on Mahmoud and its implication for parental rights.

Read DFI’s amicus brief in Polk v. MCPS, click here.