In His “Media Alerts,” Mendacious Michael Gottesman Deliberately Ignores Supreme Court Ruling on Parental Rights. That’s Mendacious. Again.

Mendacious Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman has recently spilled a lot of ink — literally thousands of words — over the state’s policies regarding transgender students. The progressive zealot and founder of the NJEA-funded New Jersey Public Education Coalition (NJPEC) has sent numerous “Media Alerts” to try to get the New Jersey news media to see things his way and wade into the various school district controversies. As Sunlight’s readers know, Gottesman has long been waging culture war on school boards that defy his progressive views on transgender students, which typically are comprised of parents seeking greater control over their children’s education. As always, Gottesman just can’t tell it straight. He ignores a recent US Supreme Court ruling that makes it almost certain that parents have a constitutional right to be informed of their children’s gender transition, which will be the final word on the matter. Gottesman is a lawyer. He knows this. Excluding it in his “Media Alerts” is mendacious. Again.

Gottesman has long waged culture war on school boards and parents. In Colts Neck, Cherry Hill, North Hunterdon-Voorhees, and many others, Gottesman has brought his scorched-earth tactics (here and here) against anyone who disagrees with his progressive views on transgender policies. The NJEA-funded NJPEC has also supported and run training programs for like-minded school board candidates in towns like Sparta, Westwood, and Bernards Township, and Colts Neck. Gottesman also supported Gov. Murphy’s Attorney General, Matt Platkin, as he sued four school districts (Middletown, Marlboro, Manalapan, and Hanover) over their parental notification policies. On the other side of Gottesman’s culture war is largely parents who want to assert more control over their children’s education.

In his attack on the Kinnelon school board, Gottesman mendaciously ignores a recent US Supreme Court ruling. In recent posts, Gottesman attacked the Kinnelon school board for considering a “Parents Bill of Rights” requiring that schools inform parents if their children are changing their gender identities at school (much like Colts Neck’s policy). In the end, Kinnelon adopted a different policy that adhered to existing district, state, and federal policies and laws. In his “Media Alert,” Gottesman characterized the new policy as a defeat for parental rights because no state or federal law mandates parental notification but neither do they explicitly permit notification, rendering the policy indeterminate. This is where Gottesman reverted to his habitual mendacity. He completely ignores the recent US Supreme Court ruling, which was a slam-dunk in favor of parental rights.

The Supreme Court’s slam-dunk ruling in favor of parental rights. The court ruled in favor of California parents who challenged a California law that prohibited schools from notifying parents about their child’s gender transition without the child’s consent.

In a summary judgement (the case did not even make it to trial), a federal district court in California issued a permanent injunction against the state law. California appealed and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (a notoriously liberal court) stayed the district court’s permanent injunction pending a ruling on the merits of the appeal. The Supreme Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s stay and reinstated the permanent injunction. That means the state law is blocked until the Ninth Circuit decides the case on the merits. In the meantime, parents have the right to be informed of their child’s transitioning at school.

But that’s not all the Supreme Court did. Importantly, the court also made very clear that it believed that the federal district court’s ruling was correct and that the parents would prevail when the Ninth Circuit decides the case on the merits. Here are some of the court’s key findings, which are backed by longstanding Supreme Court precedents:

• “We conclude that the parents who seek religious exemptions are likely to succeed on the merits of their Free Exercise Clause claim.” In other words, parents who claim that their constitutional right “to guide the religious development of their children” was violated by the state law are likely to prevail on appeal. The court made clear that the state law “cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents.”
• The court also ruled in favor of the parents on due process grounds: “parents — not the state — have primary authority with respect to ‘the upbringing and education of children.” As a result, the state law ” likely violate[s] parents’ rights …”
• Parents, not the state, have the primary responsibility for their children’s safety. The state claimed that its law was necessary to protect children’s safety, but the Supreme Court dismissed that argument: “the injunction here promotes child safety by guaranteeing fit parents a role in some of the most consequential decisions in their children’s lives.”

Once the Ninth Circuit makes its (Supreme-Court-advised) decision, it will be settled that parents have the constitutional right to be informed of their children’s gender transition. At that point, any Kinnelon policy will adhere to federal, constitutional law and parents will indeed be able to demand to be notified. Nothing in the Kinnelon policy would preclude that. And Platkin’s lawsuits and all Gottesman’s hot air on the subject will be null and void.

The same is true for Gottesman’s commentary on a parents’ lawsuit in Monmouth County. Two Monmouth County parents sued the Monmouth Regional school district claiming that they were not notified of their child’s gender transition. Gottesman makes a big deal about the court’s ruling in favor of the parents being preliminary, which is true so far as it goes, but the case will turn on the facts of the case, not the law. Due to the Supreme Court’s ruling, it is almost certain the law will soon recognize the parents’ constitutional right to be notified. The only question will be the factual one of whether they were notified. But Gottesman again ignores all of this.

Mendacious Michael “Hundreds of Millions” Gottesman resorts to mendacity. Again. Gottesman is a lawyer. He knows all about the consequences of the Supreme Court’s ruling. But he deliberately did not mention it and attempted to sway the press corps with his slanted — and inaccurate — perspective. That’s mendacious. Again.