One California school district’s rules on Critical Race Theory and transgender parental notification will remain in place, at least for now, a judge has ruled.
The Temecula Valley Unified School District south of Los Angeles prohibits schools from teaching certain elements of Critical Race Theory and requires schools to inform parents if their children ask to identify as a new gender.
A group of parents, students, and teachers sued over the policies, seeking a preliminary injunction to block their enforcement.
However, on Friday, Riverside Superior Court Judge Eric Keen denied that request.
The judge rejected the group’s claim that the school board’s ban on Critical Race Theory curriculum content was vague, pointing out that the policy prohibits specific elements of the ideology.
“It seems clear to the court that a person of ordinary intelligence would have a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited as what is prohibited is set out specifically in the resolution,” the judge wrote.
The judge also ruled said the district’s transgender notification policy “does not expressly single out transgender or gender-nonconforming students, as it applies to any student’s request to change their school official or unofficial records.”
An attorney for the plaintiffs said they plan to appeal the ruling “immediately.”
Some parents expressed their agreement with the judge’s decision.
“I wasn’t really surprised. I think that the justice system saw and said, ‘Hey, there’s nothing weird or funny here,’ but I know the trial has to continue and we’ll see how things go from here. But I think this is a huge win for parents,” said Dan Molina, a father to three students in the district.
The Temecula Valley school district, which is located south of Los Angeles, serves 28,000 students, the majority of whom are white or Hispanic.
“I do not believe that CRT or any racist ideology is a suitable educational framework for classroom instruction at the elementary and secondary level,” said Temecula Valley school board President Joseph Komrosky, one of the board members who voted for the policies.
Other California school districts have seen their policies on transgender notification challenged by Democrats at the state level.
The Chino Valley Unified School District just east of Los Angeles last year introduced a policy requiring schools to tell parents about student gender transitions.
In August, the California attorney general sued the Chino Valley district over the policy.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta is also formally backing the lawsuit against the Temecula Valley school district.
Since then, several other districts in the state have introduced nearly identical policies on transgender parental notifications.
At least one other California district, the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District has banned instruction on Critical Race Theory.
