Sabra Brucker works as an executive assistant. Her husband, Dagan, is a fifth-generation farmer in Cropsey, Illinois, about 100 miles south of Chicago.

After many years of infertility and miscarriages, they finally became the parents of four young children: Addison, born in 2017; Andi, born in 2019; and twins Aiden and Arie, born prematurely in March 2021.

The Brucker family had never previously endured a run-in with child protective services. A series of medical complications involving the younger twin, Aiden, suddenly changed that. After the parents sought care for their sick child, they were falsely accused of breaking Aiden's ribs and subjected to months of humiliating inequity. And when that was over, the authorities refused to disclose the identity of the actual perpetrator.

"I never thought that this was even humanly possible," says Sabra. "To be honest, I
was probably naive."

When Aiden was 5 months old, the Bruckers discovered he had genetic intestinal malrotation—the same condition that had required emergency surgery to save his older sister Addison's life back when she too was 5 months old.

On August 9, 2021, the Bruckers took Aiden to the OSF Children's Hospital Emergency Room in Peoria, Illinois. He was experiencing intense stomach pain and vomiting, just as his older sister had. Genetic intestinal malrotation can be a life-threatening condition, and it requires immediate, emergency intervention.

Aiden's condition, though serious, was not as immediately life-threatening as Addison's had been. He was given ultrasounds and X-rays for his upper GI track, abdomen, and chest. His intestinal reversal was visualized, but no skeletal concerns were noted. Nevertheless, he was held in the hospital for observation, and subjected to daily, repeated abdominal ultrasounds and chest and abdominal X-rays.

On the fourth day of his stay at the hospital, seven rib fractures became visible on the X-rays. These were all new, non-calcified fractures that had not appeared on earlier X-rays. Rib fractures are viewed by medical profession as evidence of possible abuse.

The Bruckers immediately suspected that the fractures had occurred during the hospital stay itself, possibly due to the extensive handling and exams Aiden had endured. The lack of any signs of these injuries at admission certainly suggested that they had appeared during Aiden's inpatient care. And yet as soon as the fractures were detected, a child abuse hotline call was placed to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) naming the Bruckers as suspected abusers.

Sabra was in a meeting with her boss when she received the news.

"I immediately called my husband—he was at the hospital with Aiden—and I said, 'What is going on?'" Sabra recalls. "I just remember the sheer confusion and fear in his
voice."

Sabra and Dagan were not quick to point fingers, but they did wonder if the hospital was aware of its own potential liability when it accused them of causing the fractures.

Following the call to the child abuse hotline, a state-contracted child abuse pediatrician, Channing Petrak, assumed the role of directing Aiden's medical testing as a suspected child abuse victim. Petrak oversees child abuse cases under a subcontract her office holds with the DCFS for central Illinois. While not a hospital employee, she is viewed as the head of the hospital's child abuse team. In that capacity, she was empowered to decide which tests Aiden needed in order to confirm or rule out abuse.

She was also immediately enlisted to discuss the case with DCFS and the police and to determine whether child abuse had occurred. If she believed it had, her role would include testifying against the parents in the event the case went to court.

Petrak was responsible for testing not just Aiden but the other Brucker children as well. While parents have the right to refuse medical procedures that are not required by a court order or emergency, the fear of CPS retribution looms large.

On multiple occasions, Sabra requested a meeting with Petrak and the OSF team to ensure the timeline of the injuries was clear. She felt it necessary that everyone understand the fractures had not been present on Aiden's body upon admission, as shown by multiple X-ray examinations. Clarifying this, she thought, would allow her and Dagan to work alongside the hospital to identify their underlying cause.

Sabra even wrote on the whiteboard the team used for notes: "Can we clarify Xray finds with DCFS?" and snapped a photo of it.

"I wanted a picture with a time stamp because no one would speak to me," she says.

Sabra's requests were ignored.

Meanwhile, Petrak pushed the family to authorize an MRI, which would require Aiden to fast for eight hours and then undergo general anesthesia and be intubated. As there was no suspicion of other injuries that would have made an MRI useful, the Bruckers tried to object.

In response, the hospital threatened the family with a court order that would require Aiden to remain in the hospital's care pending a judicial order for the MRI. Since complying with the MRI demand seemed to be the only way to bring their son home quickly, Sabra comforted Aiden through the fast, and handed him over to the hospital's staff—who sedated and intubated him, and proceeded with the MRI.

The other Brucker children—ages four, two and now six months—were also subjected to observation at their home. These included visual exams of their genitals.

The state even demanded that the 4-year-old daughter, Addison, submit to a forensic interrogator. This investigator reported that Addison was very "sweet" and "polite," and no concerns were noted from her 2-hour interview.

Meanwhile, DCFS determined that the Bruckers could not take Aiden home by themselves upon his discharge. Instead, the agency demanded the family find someone else to take care of their four children. That person could do so at the Bruckers' home, and Sabra and Dagan could live there—but they would not be allowed to be alone with their children at any time. If they not did find a caregiver to watch the kids 24/7, the children would be taken into foster care and placed with strangers.

Sabra's parents, Don and Shari Boyd, lived 273 miles away. Thankfully, Shari was on hand to help out, even though she was in the middle of breast cancer treatment.

Diane Redleaf, a defense attorney who co-chairs the National Coalition to End Hidden Foster Care, says that the Bruckers' experience is commonplace. Efforts are underway to secure reforms that would allow families like the Bruckers to have some recourse when they are threatened with having their kids taken away.

This arrangement for the children was supposed to last for just two to five days, but DCFS kept extending it. The caseworker even reminded grandma Shari that she couldn't use the bathroom without taking the kids in with her. Sabra and Dagan's nighttime feedings of their baby twins also had to be supervised by Shari.

The Bruckers wanted to object, but they felt they had no choice.

This led to odd situations, such as Dagan not being able to have his kids take turns riding the combine with him—their favorite fall activity. The combine had only two seats, so if one of the children rode along, Shari and the other three children would have to somehow ride along too, or the government's plan would be violated.

As the weeks dragged on, the Bruckers worked to demonstrate that the abuse allegations against them were false. A University of Chicago pediatric orthopedic specialist, Christopher Sullivan, saw Aiden in his office and reviewed his radiology imaging and lab testing, formally concluding that the timing of the fractures' first appearance made it impossible for them to have occurred prior to the hospital admission.

Sullivan also noticed that Aiden had very low Vitamin D and high parathyroid hormone levels, which made his bones extremely fragile. He concluded that the likeliest explanation for the fractures was routine handling at the hospital.

Despite this report—and many letters from the Bruckers' pediatrician, family members, friends, and teachers—DCFS's restrictions persisted.

Meanwhile, DCFS came to suspect that the Bruckers' day care providers were Aiden's possible abuse perpetrators. For that reason, DCFS told the Bruckers they could no longer send their kids there. Everyone who had ever been in contact with Aiden before his hospital stay had suddenly become a suspect.

Sabra requested that their two older children be allowed to keep going to their day care— with their familiar friends and routines—but the caseworker said no. The caseworker also continued to demand weekly check-ins with the Bruckers. Each time, she insisted on strip-searching the twins and commenting on natural bodily features, such as inverted nipples.

As the family languished, Sabra checked the mail one day and was shocked to find a bill from the hospital for over $60,000. Her private insurance provider had denied the payment for Aiden's MRI as "medically unnecessary." The Bruckers told the hospital's billing department that they had not requested the MRI; it was done at the behest of Petrak. Soon after this, the Bruckers' billing records disappeared from their file at the hospital.

Illinois gives DCFS 60 days to complete an investigation. Knowing this, the Brucker family decided on day 60 that they had had enough of the "voluntary safety plan." They hired a lawyer with DCFS experience who confirmed their right to terminate the plan. He notified DCFS accordingly.

Three months later, in January 2022, a caseworker from a different DCFS regional office phoned Sabra to say their investigation file had been transferred. Since the children had not been seen by DCFS in several months, the new caseworker wanted to come observe them. The family declined this request. The new DCFS caseworker also informed Sabra that the Bruckers' case file was completely empty of investigative notes.

In March, and again in October, 14 months after the case had begun, the Bruckers' attorney submitted a complaint to the DCFS Inspector General. In November 2022, he received a response saying the inspector general was unable to investigate this complaint because the case was still open. The Bruckers couldn't help but wonder whether DCFS was keep the status of the investigation ambiguous in order to avoid accountability.

Finally, in November 2023, the Bruckers received a letter from DCFS stating that the case was now closed and Dagan and Sabra were cleared of any wrongdoing. Curiously, the letter claimed that "someone" had been "substantiated" as Aiden's abuser.

The Bruckers filed an inquiry as to who that person was. They were told they had no right to see these records.

Neither Petrak nor the hospital responded to a request for comment. A spokesperson for DCFS declared in a statement: "DCFS is mandated by Illinois statute to investigate any allegations of child abuse or neglect that is reported to our agency."

In situations like the Bruckers', which are far too numerous to be viewed as aberrations, concerns about children's health and well-being are cited as pretexts to legitimize witch hunts against parents and other caregivers. These investigations have lasting consequences. The Brucker children were left with extreme separation anxiety. Sabra experienced debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder. The family considered suing the caseworkers but decided that litigation would force them to relive the horror.

But they did decide to speak out about their harrowing experience. They want people to understand that the state's so-called voluntary safety plan did was neither voluntary nor safe—it was a sham.

Thankfully, Aiden's medical condition has resolved, and he's now in excellent physical shape.

"He's growing, cute, talking, very healthy now," says Sabra.

Meanwhile, Petrak recently became president of the board of directors of the National Children's Alliance. The organization oversees funding and accrediting for child advocacy centers, where allegedly abused children are interviewed and assessed across the country.

The post Illinois Falsely Accused These Parents of Abusing Their Baby—and Now Won't Tell Them Who Actually Did It appeared first on Reason.com.

A study just published in the prestigious Journal of Anxiety Disorders describes a "novel treatment" for clinically anxious kids: letting them do new things, on their own, without their parents.

In other words, letting them be Free-Range Kids.

The pilot study, by Long Island University psychology professor Camilo Ortiz and his doctoral student Matthew Fastman, focused on four kids. In his everyday practice, Ortiz would often use cognitive behavioral therapy to treat kids with anxiety. This involves exposing patients to the very thing that scares them so that they can overcome it. For instance, a person deathly afraid of dogs might be shown a picture of a dog, then stand in the same room as a dog, and finally have to pet the dog.

Independence therapy works differently.

"We didn't actually have the kids face the things they're afraid of," says Ortiz.

The patients included:

• A boy, age 13, who experienced headaches and a pounding heart and routinely assumed the "worst case scenario," that he was very sick.
• A girl, age 9, who was so anxious about attending school that she experienced "frequent shaking, stomach issues, nail biting and crying."
• A girl, age 11, who experienced "extensive worry and extensive avoidance of everyday activities out of the home." Her fear of being judged or embarrassed led to shaking and abdominal pain.
• A boy, age 10, who wouldn't go anywhere without his mom.

The independence therapy involved each family separately visiting Ortiz five times, in his office or on Zoom. At the first session, only the parents came. Ortiz discussed the value of independence and even showed them this video of me, which, Ortiz said, "has been unbelievably effective. Many parents cry."(Ortiz told me he has been aware of Free-Range Kids since I let my 9-year-old ride the subway alone and has subsequently followed the work of Let Grow.)

At that visit, Ortiz asked the parents about their biggest concern. One couple said their daughter was too scared to sleep in her own bed. Another said their son wouldn't go up or downstairs in their home without them.

On the next visit, the child accompanied the parents. But without mentioning the big fear, Ortiz talked up independence and asked the kids what they'd like to start doing on their own. Despite their anxiety, they wanted to walk home from school, play chess in the park, take public transportation, and many other things. "OK," Ortiz told each child, "your assignment is to do one 'independence activity' a day for the next four weeks." The parents' assignment was to let them.

And yet, Ortiz confides, "The whole time I was rooting for things to go wrong." It's when a person goes from "I can't handle this!" to "Whoa—I handled it!" that the biggest growth occurs, he says.

For one of her independence activities, the girl afraid to sleep in her own bed took a city bus—and missed her stop. She was so upset that she actually talked to a stranger: the person next to her. That person told her to get off and walk two blocks back. She accomplished this, and the results were incredible.

"During the last week of treatment, unprompted," Ortiz wrote in the study, the girl "slept in her bed after never having made it through a night previously." And then she kept doing it.

Similarly, while out on an independent walk, the boy terrified about his health "really had to pee," Ortiz says. He relieved himself on the side of a building. Later, when Ortiz and the boy discussed this during a session, "we had a good laugh, but he actually learned something: Life can be messy, and it's OK."

Being psychologically flexible is one of the most important factors for predicting a good life.

In the end, the kids' anxieties markedly decreased. That was true even for the one patient who didn't finish the treatment. After two sessions, she was already "over the hump," said her parents, who reported that "she requested to stay home alone for four hours, went into a restaurant to ask for a table, babysat three kids, and organized an online art auction."

In psychological terms, it seems the kids' confidence spread from the new things they were doing to the things they'd been too scared to do. This mirrors a recent study of people afraid of both heights and spiders. Treated for one, they became less afraid of the other.

If further studies of independence therapy show this kind of success—Ortiz is seeking funding—it could prove a valuable alternative to cognitive behavioral therapy for three reasons. One, it seems to require fewer sessions, which makes it cheaper. Two, it doesn't require much training and could be done in schools. Three, it doesn't require the parents, kids, or therapists themselves to deal with the unpleasant, triggering fear.

"This is a pretty big finding—that you don't have to actually treat directly the thing someone is afraid of to make that thing better," says Ortiz.

The post 'Independence Therapy' Could Revolutionize Treatment for Child Anxiety appeared first on Reason.com.

A mom recently went to her daughter's Maryland elementary school to ask why the kids aren't allowed to play tag at recess—or even to close their eyes.

"We'd recently transferred from another district and my daughter was taken aback by how many rules there were," said the mom, whose name is being kept private to protect her identity.

There are indeed a lot of rules at the girl's new school—four typed pages of them. The mom found this out after the school administrator handed her a copy of the "Montgomery County Public Schools Playground Supervision Recess Procedures for Playground Aides." It states, among other things: 

• Baseball and football games are not permitted at any time.
• Haphazard running, chasing and tag games on the blacktop are not permitted.
• A student may not begin to swing on rings and bars until the student ahead of him/her has finished.

Once they do swing or climb, they must use an "opposed thumb grip." (As opposed to their teeth?)

The rules also instruct playground aides to "caution children if it appears that emotions and excitement are mounting to a point where incorrect actions may soon result."

After the mom sent me the rules, I contacted the Montgomery County office in charge of recess safety. They did not respond.

"It really feels as though maybe we've lost touch with what's developmentally appropriate," the mom told me.

An administrator who met with the mom explained that the school's primary job is to keep children safe at all times. The mom disagrees; a school's primary job is to teach children and avoid interfering with their development.

Boston College Psychology Professor Peter Gray feels similarly.

"These rules demonstrate no trust at all of the children, nor even of the playground supervisors," says Gray, a co-founder of my non-profit, Let Grow. "When we treat people as irresponsible, they become irresponsible."

The mom said she felt a bit sorry for the administrator, who had no say in these rules. (Just like the kids.) And she added that today's children really do seem a little rough when they play tag—probably because they've had so little practice at it.

I have heard this from other people who work with children, especially occupational therapist Angela Hanscom, who notes that when kids don't move enough, they fail to develop proprioception, the ability to know where their body is in space and how much force it needs to do something physical.

All the more reason to let kids start adjusting to each other in the easiest, most natural way possible: through play.

In his new book, The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt recommends bringing more play into kids' lives by keeping Friday afternoons free so kids can play in the neighborhood. He also recommends that schools stay open before or after school for mixed-age free play in a no-phone zone: what we call a "Let Grow Play Club." (Haidt is another co-founder of Let Grow. Our Play Club materials are here, for free.)

Depriving kids of play in the name of safety is dangerous. Even more dangerous than two kids using the climbing rings at once.

The post Elementary Schools Ban Tag, Football, and Fun During Recess appeared first on Reason.com.

"Wow!!!!" "Congrats!" "Next step: New York Times crossword puzzle!"

I began receiving such texts on Friday, after achieving the modern-day equivalent of immortality: I became a clue on Jeopardy!.

The category was "Points of View," and the clue was this: "Lenore Skenazy, who wrote of letting her 9-year-old right the NYC subway alone, moved this term from raising chickens to raising kids."

If you can't guess the answer, there's a clue at the top of this article.

So, how does one become a Jeopardy! clue? It's easy: Just let your kid do something the world considers dangerous, then write a column about why the world is wrong. Then write some more columns about it, appear on every possible talk show in defense of yourself, and then graciously accept the nickname "America's Worst Mom."

Then, start a blog about the issue and give it a catchy name, manage to trademark said name (shout out to Dale Cendali, America's top intellectual property lawyer and my dear friend from college), and write a book with the same title. Next, you have to speak at about a million schools, as well as corporate behemoths like Microsoft and DreamWorks. Perhaps most importantly, write to Matt Welch at Reason, out of the blue, and propose yourself as a columnist.

In fact, I recently rediscovered that first letter to Reason, which began:

Hi Matt!

Looking over all the topics on the Reason blog—ever fascinating—I see one that's not covered much: Parenting. And yet looking at parenting is how I found you and the whole Libertarian movement.

I was angry to learn about parents who'd been arrested for letting their kids wait in the car, or walk to the pizza parlor, or play in the park. I couldn't believe some daycare workers had to check in on sleeping babies every 15 minutes to record their sleep positions. I heard from teachers who had to fill out hazardous materials reports for each different brand of baby wipe and dish soap in their classrooms. And I still don't understand the drop-side crib recall — or so many of the CPSC's crusades (like this one against a sandal with a flower on it). And of course I hear about pretty much every Zero Tolerance travesty in this country, often days before the mainstream media gloms on. And that's not to mention all the so-called "safety precautions" set in motion after Sandy Hook, or the insane and arcane background checks now required of school volunteers. (I wrote about those in Monday's Wall Street Journal.)

So if you want to be on Jeopardy!—Jeopardy! Masters, actually—and have the contestant answer the clue correctly, just dedicate about 16 years to one specific topic and all its strange and infuriating ramifications, become the world's leading expert on the topic, and write for Reason!

The post How Free-Range Kids Became an Answer on <em>Jeopardy!</em> appeared first on Reason.com.

From today's opinion by Judge Michael Watson (S.D. Ohio) in Kaltenbach v. Hilliard City Schools (a notice of appeal has been filed):

… Plaintiffs allege that, if the District believes a parent holds anti-LGBTQ+ views, the District will not inform that parent if the parent's child shows any sign of an LGBTQ+ identity. The [District's] Policies allegedly work as follows: The District's "default" is that it will tell parents anything important about their children, including things related to LGBTQ+ issues. However, there is a "health and safety" exception to this default. Separately, the District labels people who do not support LGBTQ+ youth as "unsafe." Plaintiffs allege that when a parent is labelled "unsafe," the "health and safety" exception applies and, therefore, the parent will not be told important information. Thus, Plaintiffs allege, if a child reports that the child is struggling with LGBTQ+-related issues, and if that child's parent has been labelled "unsafe," that parent will never be informed about the child's struggles.

Plaintiffs allege that these fears came to pass for one Plaintiff, D.S. D.S.'s child, who was assigned female at birth, was struggling with mental health issues during eighth and ninth grade. At some point, employees at the child's school started using a male name and male pronouns to refer to the child, apparently believing that doing so would help with the child's mental health. D.S.'s child attempted suicide but, fortunately, survived and has received professional mental health care. No one at the school told D.S.  that employees referred to the child with male pronouns, until after the suicide attempt. D.S. has since removed the child from the District. D.S. does not allege whether the District labelled her as "unsafe" or perceived her as having anti-LGBTQ+ views.

In addition, Plaintiffs allege that school employees may have exposed students to graphic sexual material. Some school employees wore a badge (the "Badge") that communicates that the wearer supports LGBTQ+ youth. On the back of the badge, there is a QR code that, if scanned, brings up resources and materials related to LGBTQ+ issues. At least some of these resources allegedly contain sexually explicit material….

In-District Plaintiffs … allege that the [District's] Policies violate different rights: (1) Claim IV, freedom of conscience; (2) Claim V, familial integrity; (3) Claim VI, freedom of speech; and (4) Claim VII, due process….

In-District Plaintiffs lack Article III standing to pursue the Claims because they have not alleged an injury-in-fact. To establish injury-in-fact, a plaintiff must  point to an injury that is "concrete—that is, real, and not abstract." To reiterate: An "[a]bstract injury is not enough." Rather, a plaintiff "must show that he has sustained or is immediately in danger of sustaining some direct injury as the result of the challenged official conduct[.]"If a plaintiff asserts a risk of future harm, she must show that "threat of injury is both real and immediate, not conjectural or hypothetical."

In-District Plaintiffs' theory for the Claims is as follows: if the District believes a parent does not support LGBTQ+ youth, the District labels that parent as "unsafe." If an "unsafe" parent's child expresses or questions an LGBTQ+ identity (or makes statements suggesting a mental illness), the District may decide that the fact that the parents is "unsafe" warrants a "health and safety" exception to the default policy of telling parents important things about their children. If that happens, the District may offer the child mental health treatment without consulting the parents. These actions, allege In-District Plaintiffs, would violate their rights to freedom of conscience, familial integrity, and freedom of speech. Further, because the District allegedly does all these things under impermissibly vague Policies, the District violates the parents' due process rights.

In other words, if a child expresses or questions an LGBTQ+ identity (or shows signs of a mental illness) to a school official, and if the parent has, or is perceived to have, anti-LGBTQ+ views, and if the school knows about those views, and if the combination of those facts mean the school does not tell the parent about the child's sexual-identity comments, and if the school gives the child mental health treatment without the parent's consent or knowledge, then the parent's rights are violated because the parent is being "punished" for his or her beliefs and speech, is deprived of the ability to make important health decisions for the child, and has suffered these deprivations under impermissibly vague Policies.

The number of "ifs" in the preceding paragraph show why In-District Plaintiffs lack standing. In-District Plaintiffs offer no allegations that their children have told or will tell the school that they are (or may be) LGBTQ+ or that the children show any signs of mental illness. Because In-District Plaintiffs have not plausibly alleged that their children have reported or will report such issues to school officials, they have likewise not plausibly alleged that they will suffer any injury as a result of what the District might do in response to such a report.

Nor do In-District Plaintiffs allege that they have (or are perceived to have) anti-LGBTQ+ views. {True, In-District Plaintiffs allege that they have received "backlash" for filing this lawsuit, but they do not elaborate on what that backlash is or, more importantly, whether that backlash includes being perceived by the District as having anti-LGBTQ+ views. Indeed, Plaintiffs allege that the backlash is not coming from the District but is coming instead from "certain activists in the community."} As a result, In-District Plaintiffs have not plausibly alleged that they were or will be labelled "unsafe" or, by extension, that they will suffer any injury stemming from how the District interacts with parents it believes are "unsafe."

Relatedly, In-District Plaintiffs have not alleged that they do anything else that might earn them the label of "unsafe." One of In-District Plaintiffs' theories is that the District might decide a parent is "unsafe" because of a parent's religion, political view, or associations, and that this decision (and the consequences of it) would violate their First Amendment rights. In-District Plaintiffs do not allege that they have any of the religious or political views, associations, or anything else that might lead the district to believe they are "unsafe" or otherwise anti-LGBTQ+. Neither have Plaintiffs alleged that they want to participate in any of those things but are chilled from doing so because of the District's Policies. Thus, because In-District Plaintiffs have not alleged that they engage in—or want to engage in—any First Amendment activities that might make the District label them as "unsafe," they have not alleged any injury related to the same.

In sum, because In-District Plaintiffs do not allege that their children have told, nor that they will—or even may—tell school officials that they are LGBTQ+ or are experiencing symptoms of mental illness, and because In-District Plaintiffs do not allege that they have any views or participate in any activities that could earn them the label of "unsafe," In-District Plaintiffs do not allege an injury-in-fact….

In- District Plaintiffs [also] seek an injunction enjoining the District from allowing school employees to wear the Badge. In-District Plaintiffs, apparently, fear that their children will scan the QR Code and be exposed to sexually explicit material.

However, In-District Plaintiffs do not allege whether any of their children's teachers—or anyone at their children's schools—wear the Badge. Nor have In- District Plaintiffs alleged that they have any reason to believe that their children will scan the QR code if they see a Badge. Therefore, In-District Plaintiffs have not plausibly alleged any risk that their children will be exposed to the sexually explicit material because of the Badge….

D.S. asserts three claims for damages arising out of the way the District handled her child's mental health issues. In two of those claims, D.S. alleges that Defendants violated D.S.'s constitutional rights to familial integrity and freedom of conscience; D.S. also asserts intentional infliction of emotional distress. Defendants do not seek to dismiss those claims and, therefore, they will proceed.

However, D.S. also asserts several claims for declaratory and injunctive relief (the "Prospective Claims"). In those claims, D.S. seeks a declaration that Defendants violated D.S.'s rights to freedom of conscience, familial integrity, freedom of speech, and due process, and asks the Court to enjoin some of the allegedly wrongful behavior and policies.

To the extent the Prospective Claims are not duplicative of D.S.'s first three claims, they must be dismissed for lack of standing. Declaratory and injunctive relief are both forms of prospective relief. D.S. has removed her child from the District and, thus, there is no risk that the Policies will cause any future injuries (or effects of any kind) to D.S. or her child. As a result, D.S. lacks standing to seek prospective relief….

The post Lawsuit Alleging School District Wouldn't Inform Certain Parents About Their Children's "Sign[s] of an LGBTQ+ Identity" Dismissed for Lack of Standing appeared first on Reason.com.

From Doe v. Delaware Valley Regional High School Bd. of Ed., decided today by Judge Georgette Castner (D.N.J.):

Jane Doe is a freshman at Delaware Valley Regional High School in Frenchtown, New Jersey. Jane is a minor diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Unspecified Mental Disorder (UMD), and has been under the care of a therapist for anxiety, depression, and gender confusion since April 2022. {The Court refers to Plaintiff's child as "Jane Doe," consistent with Plaintiff's Verified Complaint and the parties' briefing.} Plaintiff John Doe is Jane's father. Plaintiff alleges that he and mental health professionals "agreed to take a cautious approach to Jane's gender confusion" given her mental health diagnoses and the trauma following the death of Jane's mother.

At school, Jane participated in an extracurricular club known as "Students Advocating for Equality," or "SAFE," which "promote[s] open discussion and awareness about modern cultures and topics surrounding intersectionality while aiming to make positive contributions to [the] community and school." Defendant Ashley Miranda is a school counselor and the staff advisor of SAFE.

According to the Complaint, "Jane attended a SAFE meeting and expressed to … Miranda that she would like to undergo a social transition from female to male in school." Plaintiff alleges that Miranda "immediately affirmed Jane's expressed identity and began to facilitate Jane's social transition" and "asked Jane if she would like to change her name and pronouns and be known only as a male at school, to which Jane agreed." Plaintiff alleges that Miranda subsequently emailed the entire high school staff, except two teachers, informing them of Jane's name change, but that Plaintiff was not notified.

Plaintiff alleges that Miranda and the school concealed Jane's social transition from him in several ways. In her email to the staff, Miranda informed the staff that Plaintiff "was not to be informed of Jane's social transition." Miranda also allegedly excluded two teachers from the email because they "have contacts with members of the Doe household." {This fact is contested by Miranda through a sworn declaration. In a responsive declaration, Jane Doe says that she asked Miranda not to include two teachers on the email because of their relationship with her family. Even accepting Plaintiff's allegations as true, it is currently undisputed that Miranda's alleged actions were done at Jane's request. The parties will have an opportunity to provide a more fulsome record on this point in advance of a preliminary injunction hearing.}

And Plaintiff claims that when he communicated with the school about Jane, the school only ever referred to Jane by her given female name "for the purpose of concealing Jane's social transition." Plaintiff learned of Jane's social transitioning at school "months after it commenced," when another parent called Jane by a male name in Plaintiff's presence….

Plaintiff informed the administration that he and Jane's therapist "were not in agreement with Jane's social transition and expressly denied his consent to the continuance of Jane's social transition." The school district replied that it was compelled by law and policy to call Jane by her preferred male name until such time as Jane indicated otherwise….

Plaintiff sued, claiming defendants violated his constitutional parental rights, and sought a temporary restraining order; but the court concluded that he lacked "a reasonable chance of success on the merits":

In this case, Plaintiff asserts a liberty interest in "the care, custody, and control of" his child, which "is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests" protected by the Due Process Clause. In support, Plaintiff cites to Supreme Court precedent recognizing a parent's general right to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.

But the question before the Court is not whether there is a general parental right related to the care, custody, and control of children. The question is whether Plaintiff has a fundamental constitutional right that requires the Board Defendants to obtain Plaintiff's consent prior to recognizing and referring to Jane as to her preferred gender. At this stage, based on a careful review of all submissions, the Court finds that Plaintiff has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits as to this question.

For one, the cases that establish fundamental parental rights — and define the scope of those rights in a school setting — do not support the type of unqualified right that Plaintiff asserts in this case. Although United States Supreme Court precedent has affirmed the right of parents to control the upbringing of their children, it has also recognized that this right is not absolute in a school setting and that schools may impose reasonable regulations.

The Third Circuit has similarly recognized that although the "Supreme Court has never been called upon to define the precise boundaries of a parent's right to control a child's upbringing and education," it is "clear … that the right is neither absolute nor unqualified." And "despite the Supreme Court's 'near-absolutist pronouncements' concerning the right to familial privacy, the right is necessarily qualified in a school setting where 'the state's power is custodial and tutelary, permitting a degree of supervision and control that could not be exercised over free adults.'"

The Third Circuit has also found dispositive that in each of the foundational Supreme Court cases recognizing the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children, "the state was either requiring or prohibiting some activity" by the parents. In Anspach v. City of Philadelphia, Department of Public Health, a public health center that provided a minor with emergency contraceptive pills without her parents' knowledge or consent was found not to have violated the parents' substantive due process rights. The Third Circuit reasoned that the state in Anspach was not constraining or compelling any action by the parents, in contrast to the laws at issue in Supreme Court cases such as Meyer [which banned teaching of foreign languages in private schools], Pierce [which generally banned private schools], and Yoder [which required parents to provide some sort of schooling until age 16]….

Here, Board Policy 5756 does not impose the kind of "constraint or compulsion" that the Supreme Court and the Third Circuit have found violative of parental rights. The Policy does not require Jane to engage in an activity that Plaintiff does not want her to engage in, nor does it prohibit Jane from engaging in an activity that Plaintiff wants her to engage in. Rather, Board Policy 5657 directs the school to refer to students by … their preferred gender identity without requiring the school to obtain a parent's consent or to affirmatively notify parents.

In contrast, Plaintiff asks the Court to "impose a constitutional obligation on state actors to contact parents of a minor" who requests to be recognized by a different gender identity, regardless of the minor's preference as to parental notification. Based on the current record and posture of this case, the Court is not convinced that imposing such an affirmative obligation is within "the scope of the familial liberty interest protected under the Constitution." Plaintiff has not demonstrated on the factual record at this preliminary stage that such a right is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," and this Court is guided by the Supreme Court's and Third Circuit's admonitions not to "read these phrases too broadly to expand the concept of substantive due process … with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution."

Nor does the current record establish the type of proactive, coercive interference with the parent-child relationship that the Third Circuit has found to violate parents' constitutional rights in analogous circumstances.

In Gruenke v. Seip, for example, a high school swim coach pressured a student to take a pregnancy test without her parents' knowledge or consent. The plaintiffs asserted several violations of constitutional rights, including that the coach's actions "violated [the mother's] constitutional right to manage the upbringing of her child" and "obstruct[ed] the parental right to choose the proper method of resolution" of her daughter's pregnancy. Given the coach's "continued intrusion into what was a private family matter … contrary to [the student's] express wishes that he mind his own business," the Third Circuit found that the plaintiffs had established an "unconstitutional interference with familial relations."

Five years later, in C.N. v. Ridgewood Board of Education, the Third Circuit contrasted the Gruenke defendant's behavior with a school survey that questioned students without parental consent about sensitive topics, such as sexual activity. The Third Circuit held that the survey did not violate the parents' right to control their children's upbringing because the survey, unlike the coach's actions in Gruenke, did not "strike at the heart of parental decision-making authority on matters of the greatest importance." The Court reasoned that a "parent whose middle or high school age child is exposed to sensitive topics or information in a survey remains free to discuss these matters and to place them in a family's moral or religious context, or to supplement the information … [but] School Defendants in no way indoctrinated the students in any particular outlook on these sensitive topics." Thus, the Court concluded that the survey's interference with parental-decision making authority did not amount to a constitutional violation.

The Court in Anspach similarly found that its holding in Gruenke "does not extend to circumstances where there is no manipulative, coercive, or restraining conduct by the State." In Anspach, the Court emphasized that the coach in Gruenke acted "contrary to the student's express wishes that he mind his own business," and "against her express wishes, the coach … attempt[ed] to have her admit to being pregnant, … paid for a pregnancy test and told her, through other members on the team, that unless she took the pregnancy test, he would take her off the relay team." The Third Circuit contrasted the coach's behavior with that of the health clinic, which neither coerced the minor into taking emergency contraceptives, nor discouraged her from discussing the issue with her parents. The minor was "only given the pills because she asked for them," and no one at the center coerced her into taking the pills or discouraged her from discussing the issue with her parents.

The Anspach decision also distinguished Arnold v. Board of Education of Escambia County, Alabama, a case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit where school officials "not only pressured [minor students] to refrain from discussing [a] pregnancy and abortion with their parents, but also imposed their own will on the decision of the children regarding whether to abort the pregnancy in various ways, including by providing them with the money for the procedure and hiring a driver to take them to the appointment." Critical here, while the school officials' behavior in Arnold and Gruenke violated parental liberty rights, the Third Circuit highlighted that "neither Arnold nor Gruenke provide for a [parent's] constitutional right to notice."

Here, Plaintiff has not established that the Board Defendants engaged in the type of proactive intrusion into private family matters that the Third Circuit found dispositive in Gruenke. The record so far indicates that the Board Defendants only began referring to Jane by her preferred gender identity at Jane's request, did not coerce Jane into making the request, and did not prevent or discourage Jane from discussing the transition with Plaintiff. Plaintiff does not allege otherwise in the Complaint or the sworn declarations. Although Plaintiff, in his brief, makes a conclusory remark that the "Board Defendants convinced Jane … that she should transition," Plaintiff cannot amend his pleadings by way of his brief, nor has Plaintiff alleged a factual basis to substantiate this assertion. The present record lacks particularized facts suggesting that the Board Defendants prompted Jane to initiate her request or proactively encouraged her to socially transition. Instead, Plaintiff alleges that "Jane attended a SAFE meeting and expressed to defendant Miranda that she would like to undergo a social transition." To the extent the Board Defendants "continue[] insisting on socially transitioning Jane," they are doing so only at Jane's affirmative request….

Plaintiff is also unlikely at this stage to succeed in showing an infringement of his "right to make healthcare and medical decisions for his child." Plaintiff alleges that Jane "has been under the care of a therapist for … gender confusion" and that Plaintiff and "mental health professionals have agreed to take a cautious approach to Jane's gender confusion."

Gender dysphoria has been "recognized by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ('DSM') as clinically significant distress or impairment related to gender incongruence.'" But Plaintiff has not alleged here that Jane has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. And even if Jane's visits with therapists for "gender confusion" amount to a "mental health condition related to gender identity," Plaintiff has not yet shown that the Board Defendants' recognition of Jane's preferred gender identity has violated Plaintiff's right to direct Jane's medical treatment.

Again, there are no allegations that the Board Defendants engaged in "treatment" by "actively approach[ing] [Jane] regarding [Jane's] preferred name," or that they suggested that Jane be referred to by a particular name and pronoun. Where, as here, it appears that "the school merely addressed the Student by the Student's requested preferred name and pronoun," and that "it was the Student initiating and requesting the use of a different name, not the District," Plaintiff has not yet established a likelihood of showing that the Board Defendants have interfered with Plaintiff's right to make medical decisions for Jane.

The post School's Referring to Student by Student-Preferred Name and Pronouns Likely Doesn't Violate … appeared first on Reason.com.

Every year, thousands of New York City families are subjected to invasive home searches as part of child abuse and neglect investigations. While less than 7 percent of these investigations lead the agency to file claims of abuse or neglect, a new lawsuit alleges that the city's Administration for Children's Services (ACS) workers often make misleading—or outright false—threats to coerce parents to allow ACS to conduct warrantless searches of their homes.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday, ACS employs a widespread policy of coercing families under investigation to allow case workers into their homes. ACS workers allegedly often tell families that they "must" or "have to" let them search their homes, insist that they do not need a warrant for the search, and even threaten to take noncompliant parents' children away. 

Even though ACS workers are technically legally required to obtain a warrant to search homes, the agency very rarely seeks them. According to the suit, of the almost 53,000 investigations conducted by ACS in 2023, it only sought 222 court orders to search families' homes.

"Even assuming ACS completed only one home search during each investigation (it typically conducts several), ACS sought court orders for just 0.4% of home entries," the suit states. "This means over 99.5% of home searches that ACS conducts are 'presumptively unreasonable' under the Fourth Amendment."

Once inside a family's home, the suit claims that ACS workers engage in incredibly invasive tactics, looking "inside medicine cabinets, under beds, in closets and dresser drawers, in the refrigerator, and in cupboards." Even more troubling, strip searches of children are common, with workers demanding that children lift up their shirts or pull down their pants. Over the course of an investigation—the average length is 60 days—families are typically subjected to these searches more than once.

The agency itself seems self-aware about the impact of these coercive techniques. According to one 2020 report by the National Innovation Service, ACS policy "incentivizes [staff] to be invasive and not tell parents their rights." The report noted how "the experience of an investigation, even when an allegation is ultimately determined to be unfounded, too often traumatizes parents and children."

Further, agency leadership has also acknowledged that many reports of child abuse and neglect are completely unfounded, as individuals are allowed to make anonymous reports. A 2023 letter from the New York City Bar went so far as to state that a "significant percentage of" child abuse hotline callers "make false reports, for the purpose of harassment."

In all, the suit argues that ACS' policy of using coercive tactics to enter families' homes without a warrant constitutes a violation of their Fourth Amendment rights, arguing that the agency's "failure to adequately train or supervise ACS caseworkers regarding the protection of parents' Fourth Amendment rights" has directly led ACS workers to use manipulative, false tactics to persuade families to allow them to "conduct warrantless, non-exigent searches of Plaintiffs' and class members' homes."

The post NYC Child Protection Agency Uses 'Coercive Tactics' To Bully Parents Into Allowing Warrantless Searches appeared first on Reason.com.