Federal court rules Ohio school cannot force students to ‘affirm’ classmates’ gender identity

In 2023, the group Defending Education sued the Olentangy Local School District after the district's anti-harassment policy required that students use the "preferred pronouns" of others, and argued such policies went against free speech rights under the First Amendment by “compelling students to affirm beliefs about sex and gender that are contrary to their own deeply held beliefs.”

A lower court tried to toss out the challenge, but on appeal, a panel ruled 10 to 7 that the school district is not allowed to “wield their authority to compel speech or demand silence from citizens who disagree with the regulators’ politically controversial preferred new form of grammar."

There were punishments attached to violating the preferred pronouns policy, including suspension and expulsion if students used the pronouns that went with others' biological sex, per the lawsuit. “American history and tradition uphold the majority’s decision to strike down the school’s pronoun policy,” the court argued in its opinion on the case.

“Over hundreds of years, grammar has developed in America without governmental interference. Consistent with our historical tradition and our cherished First Amendment, the pronoun debate must be won through individual persuasion, not government coercion. Our system forbids public schools from becoming ‘enclaves of totalitarianism.’"

The lawsuit stemmed from several parents who had students attending the school taking issue with the policy and had children who would "often interact 'with students that identify as transgender or nonbinary at school,'" the opinion stated.

The children attending the school, the lawsuit alleged, "'self-censor[ed' for fear that the School District will punish them if they adhere to what they believe to be the undeniable truth by using biological pronouns."