Parents Defending Education v. Olentangy Local School District Board of Education: Protecting Identity or Violating Free Speech?

By Rishika Ghosh   Edited by Simran Agarwal 

Vol. 1, Issue 2. — July 2025

This article examines the ongoing case Parents Defending Education v. Olentangy Local School District

Board of Education [1], which centers on the intersection of students’ First Amendment rights and a school district’s obligation to create a safe, inclusive learning environment for all. Prompted by district policies prohibiting intentional misgendering and promoting an inclusive environment, the lawsuit argues that such policies infringe upon students’ rights to free speech and religious expression. The article explores the legal and constitutional questions raised, including the definitions of compelled speech, harassment, and viewpoint discrimination. While lower courts have upheld the district’s policies as constitutional under Tinker v. Des Moines, the case’s pending rehearing en banc (case is heard and reconsidered by the entire court, rather than just a panel of judges) [2] signals its broader implications for future policy-making in schools nationwide. Ultimately, this case underscores the ongoing tension between advancing LGBTQ+ protections and safeguarding constitutional freedoms.

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[1] United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Parents Defending Education v. Olentangy Local School District Board of Education, United States Court of Appeals, 2024, https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/24a0159p-06.pdf

[2] U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Appellate Procedure Guide, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, December 2024, https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/AppellateProcedureGuide/Decision_Post-Decision/APG-rehearingandrehearingenbanc.html   

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Introduction

A groundbreaking executive order issued by President Donald Trump at the beginning of 2025 declared that the

government would only recognize two sexes: male and female. The creation of Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government (Executive Order 14168, Jan 20,  2025) directly impacts members of the LGBTQ+ community, specifically those who identify as transgender or non-binary [3]. They are no longer able to update their gender on federal documents and use “X” in place of female and male. This executive order is the most current case related to identity, pronouns, and the rights of members of the transgender community, however, it is not the first. In 2023, Parents Defending Education (PDE), a nationwide membership organization consisting primarily of parents of school-aged children, filed a lawsuit against the Olentangy Local School District Board of Education for forcing students to use pronouns transgender children identify with, regardless of their personal beliefs. The argument they present is that the district’s policy violates the First Amendment rights of students by forcing them to use terminology that conflicts with their religious beliefs or face punishment for not following school rules. The opposing argument of this case as defended by the district is that purposeful misgendering, regardless of the intentions behind doing so, can create a harmful and hostile environment for students who identify as transgender and that their policies have not been used to discipline students but rather protect all students, not just transgender, from harassment. Ultimately, this case exhibits a school’s responsibility to maintain a balance between creating an environment where everyone is welcome and respecting their students’ basic constitutional rights.

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[3] Solcyré Burga and Chantelle Lee, The Implications of Trump’s Executive Order on Sex, TIME, (January 27, 2025),  https://time.com/7210389/donald-trump-executive-order-sex-gender-id/

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Background

A parent member of the PDE emailed their district (Olentangy) asking if their child, who was devoutly Christian

and raised to believe in two biological genders, would be required to use the preferred pronouns of another student identifying as transgender or be reprimanded by the district. The District responded that according to their policies, if a student purposefully used gendered language that contradicted the identity of the other student, it would be considered as a form of discrimination. Olentangy clarified soon after that they would be more than willing to discuss alternative solutions to using pronouns that contradict a student’s religious beliefs including substituting the transgender student’s first or last name in place of the pronoun.​

In addition to maintaining a Code of Conduct that students are required to follow, Olentangy went a step further

to create a set of policies, labeled as LGBTQ+ anti-bullying policies in this case, that lays out further expectations in  regards to bullying, harassment, and behavior. The district felt that these additional policies were necessary in order to “proactively make sure something doesn’t rise to the level of a [classroom] disruption [4].” The two District Policies that specifically prevent students from intentionally using pronouns that do not align with the gender identity others identify with are Policy 5517 - The Anti-Harassment Policy, Policy 5136 - The Personal Communication Devices (PCD) Policy.

[4] David Rees, Olentangy schools defends LGBTQ+ anti-bullying policies in federal court, Yahoo! News, March 25, 2025, https://www.yahoo.com/news/olentangy-schools-defends-lgbtq-anti-120000162.html    

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Policy 5517 - The Anti Harassment Policy

By implementing this policy, the district aimed to create and maintain an environment that is free from any and

all forms of unlawful harassment, including ones that are discriminatory and attack protected characteristics like gender identity.

The District defines harassment as “[A]ny threatening, insulting, or dehumanizing gesture, use of technology, or

written, verbal or physical conduct directed against a student or school employee that . . . places a student or school employee in reasonable fear of harm to his/her person or damage to his/her property; . . . has the effect of substantially interfering with a student’s educational performance, opportunities, or benefits, or an employee’s work performance; or . . . has the effect of substantially disrupting the orderly operation of a school [5]”.

Policy 5517 also makes a clear distinction between harassment and bullying. The latter is defined as “one (1) or

more persons systematically and chronically inflicting physical hurt or psychological distress on one (1) or more students or employees and that bullying is based upon one (1) or more Protected Classes, that is, characteristics that are protected by Federal civil rights laws. It is defined as any unwanted and repeated written, verbal, or physical behavior, including any threatening, insulting, or dehumanizing gesture, by an adult or student, that is severe or pervasive enough to create an intimidating, hostile, or offensive educational or work environment; cause discomfort or humiliation; or unreasonably interfere with the individual’s school or work performance or participation [6]”.

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[5] United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, supra 1

[6] Id.

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Policy 5136 - The Personal Communication Devices (PCD) Policy

This policy governs student device usage on both on and off of school premises as per the findings of the district

court. While there are many actions this rule prohibits, the main one relevant to this case is the usage of a PCD in a way that would reasonably create an impression of being threatened, humiliated, harassed, embarrassed or intimidated in the mind of another person whether it be a student or staff member. It further specifies that students cannot use their devices to send material that is threatening, obscene, sexually explicit, disruptive, or can be classified as harassment based upon the recipient’s race, color, national origin, sex (this includes transgender identity or sexual orientation), disability, age, religion, political beliefs, or ancestry.

Code of Conduct

The District’s Code of Conduct has a separate set of rules that students are informed of and expected to follow. A

key rule is that students must respect the rights of others. There are two provisions the PDE challenged in their lawsuit. The first being the prohibition of using discriminatory language in the form of verbal or written comments, jokes, and slurs that are considered derogatory towards an individual or group based on one or more of the following characteristics: race, color, national origin, sex (including sexual orientation and transgender identity), disability, age, religion, ancestry, or genetic information [7]. The second rule challenged was the prohibition of bullying, harassment, or intimidation as defined as “any intentional written, verbal, electronic, or physical act that a student has exhibited toward another particular student or students more than once and the behavior causes mental or physical harm to the other student(s) and is sufficiently severe, persistent or pervasive that it creates an intimidating, threatening or abusive educational environment for the other student(s).” The purpose of creating this Code of Conduct, and specifically, the rules pertaining to bullying and harassment, was to lay out a set of general expectations for students to abide by when at school in order to maintain a safe learning environment. Students agree to follow its terms and regulations when they choose to enroll and attend the school. As it is considered a contract between schools and their students, the latter group can face suspension or expulsion if they violate any of the regulations established by the Code. However, if a school district’s Code of Conduct is found to have violated a student’s constitutional rights, like their First Amendment right to Free Speech, schools are legally obligated to allow the student to return.

Because the PDE felt that the Districts extra policies violated students’ First Amendment right to free speech,

they filed a lawsuit against the Olentangy School District and many of their officials in May of 2023. They also made a motion for the court to instruct the District to temporarily refrain from enforcing the policies the PDE is challenging until the case was completed which would allow the students to ignore the pronouns transgender classmates used.

The PDE supported their argument with declarations from four members who were also parents of children

studying under the District in question. Throughout the case, they were referred to as Parents A-D. They explained that their children were taught that a person’s biological sex cannot be ignored nor could they transition from one sex to another. As a result,  their children did not feel comfortable using pronouns corresponding with gender identity rather than the ones assigned by sex at birth to refer to their transgender classmates. They also stated that their children wanted to freely present their views about gender identity to classmates, but were not able to out of fear of being punished by the District for violating their policies prohibiting such speech. With this argument, PDE attempted to show that the District was violating the childrens’ First Amendment right to free speech.

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[7] United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, supra 1

Ruling

The district court ruled that while the PDE demonstrated ample reasoning to challenge Olentangy’s Policies,

they were not able to show that policies violated the First Amendment. The court had noted that while students were stopped from intentionally misgendering others under these Policies, they did not directly state or suggest that other discussions regarding gender identity issues were also prohibited. Under this interpretation, the court ruled that the challenged district’s policies followed the standard for regulating student speech as established by Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. The court upheld that the district policies did not violate the First Amendment because they did not unconstitutionally compel speech, discriminate between viewpoints (i.e discriminate against the children of Parents A-D because their perspective did not support transgender students’ gender identity), or implement restrictions that were overbroad. The court ultimately denied PDE’s motion to request the District to temporarily refrain from enforcing the policies being challenged because the plaintiff was not able to clearly show that the four preliminary injunction factors (likelihood of success on the merits, danger of irreparable harm, balance of the equities, and the public interest) pointed in their favor. The court determined that the factors fell in favor of the defense, so they could not support the motion. Therefore, they ruled that while the case remained open, Olentangy would be allowed to continue upholding their policies that bar students from misgendering transgender classmates.

Conclusion & Implications

The Sixth Circuit Appellate Court affirmed the trial court decision on July 29, 2024. They found that the school

district had demonstrated that allowing the prohibited speech (pronouns that transgender students do not identify with) would disrupt classroom instruction. Perhaps more importantly, they upheld the finding that the policies being challenged were not compelling speech or allowing for viewpoint discrimination [8].

This case is currently ongoing as the PDE filed and was granted a petition for rehearing en banc which asks for a

case to be heard in front of an entire court instead of only a panel of judges [9]. However, this case has already established its significance as it underscores the delicate balance schools must maintain between fostering an inclusive environment and respecting students’ constitutional rights. The court’s decision suggests that schools can prohibit intentional misgendering without crossing the line into compelled speech or viewpoint discrimination, as long as alternative accommodations (such as using a student’s name instead of pronouns) are offered.

Looking ahead, this case may serve as a blueprint for other school districts navigating similar conflicts between

anti-discrimination policies and religious or free speech claims. It also raises broader questions about how schools should respond to shifting definitions of gender and identity while remaining within constitutional bounds. Parents Defending Education v Olentangy Local School District Board of Education highlights the increasing tension between expanding LGBTQ+ protections and preserving religious and speech freedoms, making it an important case to follow and discuss.

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[8] Sabrina Conza, Sixth Circuit Upholds Overbroad Speech Policies in Parents Defending Education v. Olentangy Local School District Board of Education, Harvard Law Review, (September 18, 2024), https://harvardlawreview.org/blog/2024/09/parents-defending-education-v-olentangy-local-school-district-board-of-education/

[9] U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, supra 2