PORTLAND, Ore. - An Oregon school district backed down from an order barring a mother from visiting her children’s elementary school after she sued and claimed her right to protest transgender policies was being violated.
Portland Public Schools ordered Allison Roberts to stay off school grounds in February after she handed out letters to other parents criticizing policies that included displaying a transgender-supporting Pride Flag and refusing to notify parents about children’s gender choices. The school district accused Roberts of harassment, and news reports at the time described a “heated exchange with another parent.” Roberts said she missed her son’s fifth-grade graduation because of the trespass order.
Days before a scheduled hearing in federal court on her request for an injunction, the school district agreed to reverse the ban from school grounds, withdrew its warning and formally recognized Roberts’ First Amendment right to criticize school policies. The district said it would also put its harassment policy under review.
“Portland Public Schools tried to silence a mother who dared to question what was happening in her children’s school,” said Timothy R. Snowball, lead attorney for the Liberty Justice Center’s PARENTS Initiative, which represented Roberts. “Now the district has agreed to withdraw its warning, rescind its campus ban, and recognize her right to speak freely.”
LJC tracks and files lawsuits over policies that prohibit schools from informing parents about their children’s gender choices and require students to attend sex education classes they disagree with on religious grounds.
Portland Schools didn’t admit wrongdoing in the stipulation it agreed to ending Roberts’ suit, although it said it will “engage in meaningful conferral” over her objections to school policies. The district also said it will inform her if any of her children disclose “that they are transgender, that they are transitioning, or that they are exploring their gender identity” unless there is a serious risk of abuse or neglect by doing so.
LJC said Roberts will continue to challenge the district’s nondisclosure policies in court as a violation of her constitutional right to religious expression.
In her lawsuit, she described being surprised when her son brought home an “identity flower” that appeared to require him to specify his gender along with other characteristics like “ability” and “spirituality.” She also objected to a multicolored LGBTQ+ Pride Flags painted on a school bench that went past the traditional gay rights to include “controversial `trans’ ideology.”
When the school declined to address her concerns, Roberts said she decided to hand out letters to parents on the sidewalk outside, where she got in a confrontation with the husband of a PTA member. When she said she had almost been assaulted for wearing a Trump hat, Roberts said, the man yelled “white people are disgusting!” and she responded by calling him a racist “and cussing.” The next day police delivered the trespass order barring her from campus.
The district also said it will rescind its trespassing order but will only allow Roberts on school grounds after she meets with school officials “to discuss her reintegration and communication plan going forward.”
In March the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated an injunction halting California school policies that prevented parents from learning about their children’s gender choices. In that order, the court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s pretrial stay of the injunction, saying that while California said the policies “advance a compelling interest in student safety and privacy …those policies cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents.” Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor opposed the order.
