Cumberland advances policy mandating school personnel out transgender students to parents

The policy also allows parents to enforce their choice of name and pronouns on school personnel when addressing their child, essentially mandated misgendering.

The Cumberland School Committee Policy & Procedures Sub-Committee met on Tuesday to discuss changes to various policy rewrites, but the one that drew over a dozen people was the plan to weaken protections in the school system’s A-7 Transgender & Nonbinary Policy. Based on the U.S. Supreme Court decision Mirabelli v. Bonta, the subcommittee revised the policy mandating that the school system report children who identify as transgender to their parents (as long as the child is determined to be in no danger from the parent in the event of disclosure) and that parents can force teachers to misgender students who use names or pronouns the parents object to.

The policy, as it stands, has worked without issue for over a decade; the legal justification for changing it is suspect, and over a dozen people attended the meeting to oppose the changes.

In the end, the three-person subcommittee could not generate support for the policy change. When Committeemember Keri Smith moved the policy for a vote, neither Subcommittee Chair Lisa Goldstein nor Committeemember Kerry Feather seconded the motion. As a result, the policy isn’t dead; instead, it moves to the full, seven-member School Committee for a vote on July 16 at 7 pm. See: agenda item IX, B, 3 here.

Below, I have transcribed much of the meeting, edited for clarity, brevity, and on-topic focus. Here’s the video:

Subcommittee Goldstein added public testimony to the agenda ahead of the policy change discussion, and several people testified after the policies were advanced to the full committee for discussion.

John Higgins, Cumberland resident: I’ve got one kid currently in the school, and three kids have been through the school. One of the kids who went through the school is transgender, so I’m going to talk about the transgender policy. My biggest concern is that not every household is as supportive of this as we would hope. My concern is that if we mandate that parents be notified, what will happen to those kids? When my daughter did that, it wasn’t a big deal. But not every other place is that.

The other thing I’m wondering is: What’s triggering this change? Is it the Supreme Court decision, which was vague at the very least, and wasn’t a final decision? If it is, I’m wondering if we’re jumping the gun by changing policy based on an interim Supreme Court decision, because the original policy looked awesome. It looked very protective of the children. It looked like it was aimed at helping children get to where they’re going.

I mean, we all know that at that age, none of us know who we are. We’re all trying to find who we are at that age. I remember what I was like as a kid. I know what my wife was like at that age. I know what a lot of my friends were like at that age. We were all trying to find ourselves. My concern is that this policy change may be prematurely doing things that keep our children from finding themselves and being their genuine selves. I’m really worried about this policy.

I’ll let someone else speak, but I would love to find out what triggered this policy change.

Reverend Heather Bailes Baker, Cumberland resident: I serve as a pastor alongside the people of the Arnold Mills United Methodist Church. I am a Cumberland resident and the parent of two Cumberland students, one recently graduated from Cumberland High School, and one will be a junior this fall. I’m here tonight to urge you to reject the proposed changes to the policy affecting students who identify as transgender or non-binary, and to leave the current policy as it stands.

As a mother, I am grateful that our schools strive to be places where students can learn, grow, and become themselves. I am grateful specifically for this community and specifically for Cumberland High School, which has embraced my children and helped them to thrive.

I believe every parent wants their child to be safe in school. I also recognize a difficult truth: Not every student experiences home as a safe place to explore or express who they are. For some, school may be the only environment where they are seen, supported, and protected. Our current policy gives them time and space to be, before mandating to whom they must disclose. Policies that require disclosure of a student’s gender identity or chosen name without their consent risk breaking trust and placing vulnerable students in harm’s way.

As a pastor, I believe that every person is a beautiful, beloved child of God, created with inherent worth and dignity, and my faith teaches me that we are called to love our neighbors, care for the vulnerable, and treat every person with compassion and respect. The current policy provides a thoughtful framework that balances student well-being, family relationships, and professional judgment. These proposed changes do not solve a problem. Instead, they create new risks for students who are already vulnerable.

I ask you to consider the people that this policy will affect: Our students. They deserve privacy. They deserve dignity. They deserve to know that the adults who are entrusted with their care will protect them. They deserve to decide who they will share their full selves with and the time and space to make that decision. Please reject these proposed changes and preserve the protections that are currently afforded to transgender students.

Eleanor Baker, Cumberland resident: I’m here on behalf of the trans students, most of whom are my friends, and for those who aren’t, who will be put in direct danger because of these proposed policy changes. Over my years in school, I have had several friends who, had their parents found out about their trans identity, would have faced the possibility of being removed from school, their friends, their family, and even from the outside world.

I’ve also had friends who have encountered immediate physical danger because of their trans identity from those who were supposed to care for them the most, yet, oftentimes, these parents were also in very good standing with the school to the point where no one but the student themselves can know how bigoted their parents were towards their identity.

I believe that it is nobody’s place but the students’ to assume whether one will or won’t be safe following the outing of their identity. As a school, the number one priority should be protecting all of your students. Instead, these proposed policy changes will put many students in danger.

Cynthia Moak, Cumberland resident: I am the lay leader at Arnold Mills United Methodist Church in Cumberland, a reconciling Methodist ministry that works to advance justice and inclusion for all LGBTQ+ people. I am speaking this afternoon against any attempts to weaken protections and privacy for trans students. The current policy should be left intact as it currently stands. I ask you to remember that behind every policy you consider is a child or youth who comes to school hoping to learn, belong, and feel safe.

For transgender students, privacy is a matter of trust, dignity, and, for many if not most, personal safety. Removing privacy protections doesn’t strengthen our schools. It risks isolating students who are already among the most vulnerable.

Courts have long recognized that students do not leave their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door, and schools have a responsibility to protect every student’s equal right to dignity and privacy. No student deserves to be singled out or treated as less worthy of these protections. No student should be made to feel exposed, humiliated, or afraid because of who they are. Our schools should reflect the values we strive to teach: compassion, kindness, respect, and fairness. The revised policy constitutes an invasion of privacy and dignity for trans students and puts them at risk of harm.

The true measure of community is not how it treats those who fit in most easily, but how it protects those who most need its support. You have an opportunity to show every trans student that they matter and that their privacy, dignity, and humanity are worth protecting by rejecting these proposed policy changes.

At the church I attend, we believe every person is a beloved child of God, including, and especially now, trans students. I urge you to preserve their privacy rights and ensure that every student who walks through our school doors knows that they are valued, respected, and safe.

Attorney Jennifer Wood: I am the director of the Rhode Island Center for Justice, and we work with many children and their families in Rhode Island public schools. I’ve also been doing that work since I left law school in 1985. I worked for 10 years at the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) as General Counsel. I’ve pretty much dedicated my adult life to understanding, to the extent possible, the laws around public education, and I come here this evening to join your community members in encouraging the policy committee to take a thoughtful pause and not make any abrupt changes at this time.

I’m basing that on a couple of main points, the first being the unsettled nature of the law in this area. The second is the stable framework that you have sustained for over 10 years. And the third is that when there are questions where there’s a balancing to be done, I believe the best approach for a school committee policy committee is to balance those potentially conflicting interests in favor of student safety and well-being consistent with the broader Rhode Island education laws, which have many of the statutes that govern the operating of the public schools centering student safety as a fundamental principle such that children can come to school feeling safe and have it be a place of learning and not a place of fear.

Earlier in the spring, the Cumberland School Committee Policy Subcommittee very responsibly took up the question of what this new Supreme Court ruling in the Mirabelli v. Bonta case means for our district and policies. You’ve already heard from others that the Supreme Court forecast that a California policy essentially prohibiting parental notification and was not passive in its application, and was likely to be upheld, and therefore overturned the appeals court’s stay of an injunction in the lower court.

The case came to the Supreme Court on an injunction, and it’s a relatively short decision that says: We’re going to let that injunction be in place, which enjoins the policy prohibiting parental notification in California, and restricts it to that.

A month later, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to overturn a Massachusetts district policy that protected students from parental notification. So I don’t think there’s a compelling basis to make a change. And even if you were, there are some technical issues with the draft. It references the wrong section of the Rhode Island State law, so I’m flagging those. It’s not important to your consideration of whether to move forward with the changes, but you’ve had a stable framework in place for 10 years that primarily protects student safety and privacy, and I would encourage you not to change it now.

Subcommittee Chair Lisa Goldstein: Thank you to the folks who made comments. We appreciate them, and I do take it to heart. We had a conversation about this at the end of March. Mr. Adams will talk a bit about what triggered this, why now, and what’s happening with the law.

School Committee Attorney Stephen Adams: At the March meeting, we discussed the Mirabelli case. There’s a recent case that just came out on transgender issues that some folks may be familiar with, which is not under consideration. It has nothing to do with this. The discussion was about the Supreme Court’s pronouncement, and, respectfully, to Attorney Wood, this is not political, either by the committee or certainly by me. I’m not a politician. I’m a lawyer. Sometimes, reasonable minds who are lawyers can differ.

When the Mirabelli case came out, while it did grant an injunction, it made some very significant pronouncements about the rights of parents with which reasonable minds can differ (and sometimes, unreasonable minds can differ on this issue.It is what it is.)

In March, the committee discussed the Mirabelli case. Based on the holdings of that case, we drafted changes to this policy. We had a discussion of those changes, not dissimilar to what is happening here, and I think we had a couple of things in footnotes, and we’ve now moved them out of footnotes. But the substance, what is on the agenda tonight, is, for all intents and purposes, identical to the policy as it was discussed in March. There’s nothing new in it.

The challenge is that when you have a ruling from the Supreme Court, albeit on a California issue, it is the United States Supreme Court, and it is the court we have. It might not be the court that some people want, but it is the court that we have, and that’s why parental notification is in there. The court has said it will embrace that. But one of the things that both Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the opinion itself carved out was situations in which a school department is concerned about the health and safety of a transgender youth. Under those circumstances, the policy, as written and consistent with the Supreme Court’s opinion, carves out an exception for situations involving concerns about a child’s health and safety.

How is that going to operate? We’re going to have to go slow. It’s going to be like anything else in this world: the school department personnel will be responsible for these responsibilities. They’re going to be the ones on the ground. And the policy designates additional personnel to handle this responsibility. But unless I’m missing something, there’s nothing substantively new in this iteration over what was on the agenda on March 31.

That’s a bit of an explanation of why we’re where we are, and that’s all I’ve got.

Committeemember Kerry Feather: Yes. What happens if we do nothing?

Attorney Adams: That’s a good question. I realize that this is viewed, like any hot-button issue, as a good-versus-evil, black-versus-white, or up-versus-down issue. In reality, I think there are shades of gray that span the entire color wheel. But it’s fair to say that if you do nothing, you are likely, in your lawyer’s view, out of compliance with the United States Supreme Court’s decision. If the school does not provide notification to parents that their child has been identified as transgender, you could not necessarily have an evil parent who’s bent on destruction, but a parent who has read the Mirabelli case - say, “I was entitled to know this. Why didn’t you tell me?” And they could bring a lawsuit.

They could do all sorts of things like that. I’m not trying to fill everybody’s heads with the darkest, worst thing. But that’s what lawyers do. We talk about risk.

The second thing is, you would be out of compliance with the Supreme Court. Arguably, from our perspective, the policy doesn’t comply with the current state of the law in this incredibly fast-moving area. I’m riffing a bit, but the most recent decision, which is the West Virginia case, doesn’t have any impact today, but the court forecasts that there’s going to be a tomorrow on the issue of transgender youth in sports.

There’s going to be a whole host of these decisions coming, and the best thing you can do is try to be as compliant as you can as they come.

Subcommittee Chair Goldstein: This is a policy subcommittee. This is not a full committee. Whether this is approved or not, it is really about whether it goes to the full committee. This is not saying that the school committee has approved this. This goes to the full committee. This is a subcommittee. Voting for it means we have reviewed it, discussed it, and decided the policy is ready to move to the full committee. So there’s a second bite of the apple.

I had questions about amendment language. We didn’t add guidance and school counselors as designated school personnel. I think those folks are qualified and trained to be school personnel, including designated school personnel, and could potentially be part of that team. I wonder about students who are 18 years old, are legally emancipated minors, and can make their own decisions about whether to notify a parent and how they are referred by staff.

A couple of things will happen in the classroom. Under the amendments to the policy consistent with the Mirabelli decision, if a student says their preferred pronouns are one thing, but their parents do not agree, staff and personnel are required to follow the parents’ decision. However, the student is not in a room by themselves. They’re in a classroom with a full room of other students, and this court decision does not bind those students. This needs to be explicitly stated in the policy: there are no ramifications for a fellow student who refers to another fellow student by their preferred pronouns, name, or gender expression.

Attorney Adams: We heard that students do not lose their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse door. That is true. All of this stuff is a hornet’s nest. On designated personnel, I think that’s a wonderful addition. For students who are 18 and students who are emancipated, it’s worth including, but I think it’s self-evident. But it’s definitely worth putting in there.

And the Mirabelli decision does not apply to fellow students. One of the serious things we need to understand is that this is about the right of parents, to a certain extent, (I hate to put it this way), control the government, if you will, the public school being the government. But they’re not controlling other students. Now, that could be another case tomorrow, but this case does not talk about that. It’s perfectly within First Amendment law for students to call their classmates however they choose, as long as it is not harmful to the classmate.

Subcommittee Chair Goldstein: This is where the law and how I feel about things collide. In terms of safety concerns, as much as possible, there has been clear language about them. Designated school personnel are in a position to make that judgment call and say that this is a safety issue. We should document that, but we cannot, in good faith, notify a parent about a safety issue.

I would be concerned about moving forward without those changes.

Committeemember Feather: I agree. As I stated back in March, this is not something that any of us want to do- or at least, speaking for myself, this is something that I don’t want to do. So the thing that was concerning, and I’m thankful that our attorneys have put in so much work into drafting language for this. But I’m not certain that we’re out of compliance. I have to be convinced that we are out of compliance.

Attorney Adams: I’m not trying to be glib with you, but if you read the Mirabelli decision, I don’t see how there’s any way around it. It is in an injunction phase, that’s absolutely true. But the court could have done a million different things, and it didn’t. It gave us a decision, so I don’t see any way around it.

But lawyers give advice. Clients are free to take or not take that advice. I am not the decider. I give advice, and on this one, it’s not a close question about what the law requires under Mirabelli.

But again, you guys are in those chairs.

Committeemember Smith: When we first made our full enhancements to this policy, we spent months and months reviewing the language to ensure we aligned with every law exactly, so there was no questionable wording. One of the questions I remember asking was, “How many instances have we had where students’ parents are not aware?”

I was told zero. I was told that the moment a student came to the school, they began asking those questions and bridging gaps to facilitate integration with the families, so I felt comfortable that the school had put something strong into place at that time. Then we had a ruling that took away some of those parental notifications, and we immediately jumped in. We said, “We’ve got to meet the rule, so let’s make all the changes.” Now we have another chance to make, and we shouldn’t hesitate.

Our primary role is always the students, but we must always follow the laws.

And federal law is the top priority that all must follow. You can correct me if I’m wrong, but all states must have a state law that is equivalent to federal law...

They’re not going to say, “Sorry, we have to tell your parents.” They will take their time and ensure they’re doing what they’re supposed to under the law: protect the students. But at the same time, mandated reporters, who are already trained for this as teachers, social workers, and others, will find that the protections we have in place address the law and concerns about the safety of these students.

Committeemember Feather: Right, but teachers don’t want, nor should they have, that responsibility.

Committeemember Keri Smith: No, and teachers are not listed as designated. What I’m saying is that anyone working in our school departments, anybody working in our school, who has already gone through mandated reporter training...

Committeemember Feather: [Mandated reporter training] is for abuse...

Committeemember Smith: ...I agree. This is still the same type of situation - they understand the abuse. They understand what to look for. They’re going to know when they’re talking to the students how to take it and drill down. They’re not going to say, “Oh, you’re saying that, but I’m not going to do anything about it.” They know how to question, get the answers they need, and make these determinations. I trust our employees here in the school department to know how to do that.

Committeemember Feather: That actually made me more nervous. I don’t want that part, because teachers should just be teaching,

Committeemember Smith: I’m not talking about teachers. Teachers will report it to the designated reporters. The designated reporter is having all of these discussions and making all of these determinations. I have full faith in our school employees that they’re going to follow the law and fulfill their roles, however this may be.

Subcommittee Chair Goldstein: It’s frustrating because this is already happening with kids who disclose to teachers. This is just a commentary and a lament, but one of the things that we don’t have in this policy is what happens if a student comes out to a teacher as transgender or non-binary. Popular culture makes it sound like that teacher says, “Cool, great, I’m going to keep that secret. between you and me, kid.” And that is not what happens. I don’t know any teachers, building administrators, or support staff who don’t want kids to have their families involved.

There is a process that happens if this is a new declaration. They are assessing if your parents don’t know yet, what’s the barrier to that? There are supports already in place in the schools. It’s frustrating to me that popular culture has made it seem like public schools are invested in keeping secrets.

To your question, I’m also not sure we’re not in compliance. I don’t know the answer.

If you have an ethics question, you can go and get an advisory opinion from the ethics committee. If you go to RIDE and ask a question about guidelines, as in, “Has RIDE made any changes in terms of their guidelines?” I ask that with full respect to you, Mr. Adams.

Attorney Adams: Good questions, which I’m going to start answering by reading from the opinions.

This is from the balance of the equity section of an injunction, and I’m not saying these words because I either do or don’t believe them. I’m saying them because I’m a lawyer. The court writes, “everyone agrees that children’s safety is the overriding equity,” which sounds like what this committee believes. And the injunction “here promotes child safety by guaranteeing fit parents a role in some of the most consequential decisions in their children’s lives.”

The injunction also permits the state, in this case the Cumberland School Committee, to shield children from unfit parents by enforcing child abuse laws and removing children from parental custody in appropriate cases.

That’s what the opinion says. It’s hard for me to find wiggle room there. The court’s decision is based on two areas of the law. One is on religious grounds for parents who argued, in this case, that their religion was somehow impacted by not being told that their child was transgender. This court is all over that stuff. We have a case that came out some time ago, Mahmoud v. Taylor, and it’s referenced in this case.

But my point is that the court relied upon the free exercise of religion in the First Amendment. The second was sort of a substantive due process that schools are “in loco parentis.” We’ve heard that term here, and it means you stand in the parents’ place. When the kid is in school, you stand in for the parent. But what I intuit from this court is that you’re not the parent. That’s why it says “fit parents” have a role in some of the most consequential decisions of their child’s life.

That’s the second part of the opinion. Is there a higher power? There is no higher power than the Supreme Court in terms of legal authority. You could go somewhere to get a different opinion; there’s someone over there, Attorney Wood, who would give you one. In all due respect to Attorney Wood, there are people on both sides of this, but I can’t get around what the court’s opinion says.

I’m not being an advocate here. I’m trying to be neutral about what the opinion tells me. Going to RIDE is probably not going to be of any utility, because right now, the Department is in the midst of a battle with an advocacy group that is seeking to, I don’t know how to phrase it, have some of the state laws that a court recently said would apply to transgender youth not apply to transgender youth.

That case is ongoing.

What we’re talking about is federal law as determined by the United States Supreme Court. You’re hearing it from me. There’s no other place you could go, except to another lawyer, and they might give you a different view. And there really is no such thing as an advisory. You could go to the Commissioner of Education, who would give you an advisory, but, respectfully, it would be of no value on this topic.

Committeemember Smith: As Mr. Adams said, we have to follow the Supreme Court’s ruling. You can’t go any higher than that. And until they make another change, we have to follow it, the same way we did back in 2024. Until something else went forward, we had to follow what was happening at that time. The June 30 case that was in front of the Supreme Court, and that was with the sports and all of those separations with transgenders, I mean, that’s not on here because that wasn’t given a solid opinion. They just kicked the can on that, waiting for another case to come up.

Attorney Adams: All they really did in that case was say that West Virginia and another state were permitted to create laws that would effectively ban transgender females from participating in cisgender female sports. All they said was that it was permitted. There’s a footnote saying they’ll address this more broadly later.

Committeemember Smith: So that’s not in front of us. We’re not looking to change that. Rhode Island doesn’t have any more on that. The Rhode Island Interscholastic League removed it from its policies; that’s why we removed it from ours.

And to address your 18-year-olds, I believe that’s already in enough of our policies. It’s already written into one of our policies regarding student age. We don’t typically add that to all our policies. It’s written somewhere, and it’s covered...

I don’t think it gets any more solid than what Mr. Adams is saying. Nor do I think that we, as a school committee, should spend money to go out and get multiple different answers. Or go to others to seek a different answer.

Attorney Adams: I’d love that, by the way. But I don’t think there would be much utility in it, because ultimately you’ll have to make the decision. Whatever you hear from a lawyer is what you hear from a lawyer. That’s not the decision.

Committeemember Feather: Can I ask a crazy question? Say we don’t follow the law, right? Say we don’t do anything, and someone brings a case against us that goes to the Rhode Island courts.

Attorney Adams: It wouldn’t, but that’s okay.

Committeemember Feather: It wouldn’t?

Attorney Adams: No, most likely it would be filed in the federal district court here, because it would be based upon this decision. But we’re in the U.S. District Court, and Judge John McConnell is there, a very favorable judge. draw, by the way, for Judge McConnell.

Committeemember Feather: ...and we win.

Attorney Adams: Yeah, you win. And then it goes to the First Circuit. And you win. And you win. And then it goes to the Supreme Court, and you lose.

Committeemember Feather: And how much money are we spending going to the Supreme Court?

Attorney Adams: You spend lots of money. That’s all fine. But I don’t actually think you’ll win in the U.S. District Court, even with someone like Judge McConnell. Maybe you do win, but I think it would be a real problem legally. When I’m talking, I’m not talking politically. There are people in the room who don’t know me. I’m not talking left or right politically. I’m just talking legally, and I don’t see it.

But that could happen in theory. You tie it in the courts for a few years. But I have a feeling this decision is going to come back again. Attorney Wood was absolutely right. We’re on an injunction. It may not come back again, actually. That’s the other thing. It may not, but it could. Or there’ll be another case that makes Mirabelli look like a walk in the park from the perspective of folks who think Mirabelli is terrible.

They might think, “Wow, I wish we were still in Mirabelli land.” You never know what you’re going to get with this court. And then the policy would need to be changed again. We’re not living in a world where everything is settled. This is an area that will change in many different ways over the years.

I don’t see the question that you’re asking as a legal question about whether the policy should be amended. It’s a procedural question. It’s a procedural question about how to amend. Okay, yep. One thing that you could do, I don’t have the agenda in front of me. The agenda says this policy’s on for discussion and vote, I assume...

Subcommittee Chair Goldstein: We’re sort of at an impasse.

Committeemember Smith: We are at an impasse, and we have a large group of people.

I wouldn’t want to hold off on this policy any longer... we’ve done that already this year...

Committeemember Feather: I say we bring this to the full committee without a decision and let them make the decision.

Attorney Adams: Is that a motion? You can do that by motion. Or you can not take any action.

Committeemember Smith: So I can make a motion to approve the policy, and if nobody seconds it, then there’s no action. And it goes to the full committee for consideration.

Attorney Adams: Yeah, so are you doing that?

Committeemember Smith: I move to approve the A7 transgender and non-binary policy as presented. [Long silence; muted discussion]

There’s no second, so it goes to the full committee on Thursday.

Subcommittee Chair Goldstein: Any public comment?

Steve Ahlquist (Me): I do not want to have to say what I’m about to say, but my conscience demands it:

Talking about feminine hygiene products is not obscene or problematic. Advancing policies that will harm vulnerable students is obscene, full stop.¹

Every day, we need to ask ourselves how far we are willing to go to satisfy an evil policy necessitated by bad laws and relentlessly pushed on us by bigots.

How far are we willing to go? When is enough, enough? When do we say no, and stand between our children and those who wish them harm?

Suicide is overwhelmingly the leading cause of death for transgender and gender-expansive teens.

Short of suicide, there are increased risks of violence, victimization, substance use, and risky sexual behaviors.

These risks are increased because of bigotry, social prejudice, and legal marginalization. The proceedings here today, intentionally or not, further all of this, and the people pushing this policy are furthering this as well.

There is no law that compels a person, even an elected official, to vote against their conscience. You cannot be compelled to violate your conscience. Every vote you make is an expression of your conscience. There is no procedural way around this, no legally binding get-out-of-hell free card. Your choices are expressions of your soul’s liberty, every time.

Allowing the policy to go to the full committee might feel like a way to avoid staining your conscience, but it is little different from loading the gun and handing it to another.

And if your conscience tells you that this policy is the right thing to do, see points 2 and 3 above, that is:

Suicide is overwhelmingly the leading cause of death for transgender and gender-expansive teens.

Short of suicide, there are increased risks of violence, victimization, substance use, and risky sexual behaviors.

Being sued is far from the worst thing that can happen. A child may be harmed.

Phoenix Witt: I’m not sure whether it needs to be my legal name, which is ironic given the situation.

I want to make it clear that simply following orders is not an acceptable answer in this situation. Within the last month, 16% of trans people have attempted suicide. and 40% have thought about it at some point in their lives. One in three has actually attempted suicide, and half have thought about it. It was only a couple of months ago that I got out of the hospital for a suicide attempt. I wasn’t able to talk with my parents about being trans, and I wasn’t able to be out at home.

The only reason I was able to survive high school was that I had people whom I could go to, where I could be me, rather than an environment where things didn’t feel like hell for a moment. And that environment was school. That was the only environment that I had.

There are studies after study linking discrimination in education and misgendering directly to suicidal ideation and attempts. There’s an explicit attempt by the ruling class of this country to scapegoat trans people for the issues that we’re having, to make them the target of discussion. They’re gonna pick us off one by one so that they can divide and conquer us, and we’re going to fall if we don’t stand up and fight. As Steve said, sending this to the committee makes it so that you don’t have blood on your own hands, but it’s not actually putting a stop to the violence that’s being done against us.

I don’t think that’s acceptable.

Brianna Santos, Cumberland resident: I’m a college student, and I’ve lived in Cumberland all my life. I went to Blackstone Valley Prep High School, where students could express themselves as they wanted because they saw it as a safe space, free of intervention. Reading the new edits to the A-7 policy, designating school personnel, should not be a thing.

The conversation about a student’s gender identity and sexuality should be between the parent and the student, if the student feels comfortable enough to open up. Involuntarily disclosing their name or pronouns to the parent against the student’s wishes would cause more harm than good, especially if one of the outcomes is to quote from the policy, “that student’s parent is against the use of the student’s chosen name/pronouns, The designated school personnel must follow the parents’ instructions on how to refer to the student. We often fail to see that students have rights like adults, and there has been a consistent tug-of-war over students’ rights in the Supreme Court.

Doing this would violate the student’s privacy and trust and would prevent the student from opening up in the future. Being a teenager is all about change and self-discovery. It is one thing to realize that one might align with a different identity or name, and it’s another to express it to people. A student opening up to the school means that they view it as a safe space. With the addition to the policy, the safe space would be nonexistent, causing tremendous distress and a lack of support.

I urge you to consider the consequences this would have should the new add-on to the policy come to fruition.

Attorney Wood: I want to clarify something, since you’ll have to decide on this policy when it goes to the full committee. Certainly, attorneys can differ, and we do differ, Steve and I, on what the Mirabelli decision requires of this school committee. It’s a seven-page decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on a California policy challenged on religious grounds. It does not require you to change the law in any way.

However, we can’t really disagree on the impact of the Foote v. Town of Ludlow decision, a 46-page decision of the First Circuit Court of Appeals that was later appealed to the Supreme Court. When Ms. Feathers asked what happens if we do nothing, I assert that Mr. Adams’s answer is incorrect because the Ludlow School Department had essentially the same policy you currently have: disclosure would not be made to parents if the student was uncomfortable with that.

In the District Court in Massachusetts, as I think in the District Court in Rhode Island, Attorney Adams acknowledged that there was a good possibility that the District Court in Rhode Island would uphold such a policy on behalf of your committee; the case went to the First Circuit. In a very well-reasoned and extensive analysis of students’ constitutional rights, both cases were decided based on federal constitutional rights rather than on federal or state statutes.

The First Circuit upheld the policy and said that parental rights had not been violated and that there were no federally constitutionally protected rights for a parent to intervene in how their student chooses to be expressed and identified at school. Parents have a lot of influence and rights vis-à-vis their kids, but not that one.

Then it went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and we know exactly what happened. Mirabelli was decided on March 2. Nearly two months later, fully aware of its ruling in the Mirabelli case, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to overturn the Massachusetts Ludlow policy. It is the law in Ludlow and a binding precedent in the First Circuit. Rhode Island is in the First Circuit. The status of that case is not open to debate.

That case is done. The Mirabelli case is at its outset with an injunction and may very well come back in a couple of years. We’ll have to see what they do with it. It is an intensely evolving area of law. This decision is highly impactful.

The Mirabelli decision foreshadows all kinds of things, but it doesn’t decide anything that your committee needs to change. The Foote decision is actually a precedent. And if the student decides that their rights have been violated, they can rely upon it in suing the committee.

1. Earlier, in a discussion about another policy, Committeemember Smith asked if my camera was running because she wanted to carefully phrase a concern about student access to feminine hygiene products.