A federal court ruled in favor of a group suing an Ohio school district over its pronouns policy on Thursday as court battles continue to rage over the nation’s culture war.
The Thursday decision from the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Olentangy Local School District’s pronoun policy that tried to force students to use biologically incorrect pronouns. The court sided with Defending Education, a nonprofit organization which argued that prohibiting students from using gendered language was unconstitutional.
The 10-7 decision was reached against the policy to prevent students from being punished for not using “preferred pronouns,” in the school district, which is the fourth largest school district in the Buckeye State.
The opinion of the court noted that a concerned parent of a “devoutly Christian child” emailed district officials in February 2023 inquiring about the transgender policy and whether the child would be forced “to use the pronouns that a transgender child identifies with or be subject to reprimand from the district if they refuse to do so” under the policy.
“A student purposefully referring to another student by using gendered language they know is contrary to the other student’s identity would be an example of discrimination under Board Policy,” a response from the District’s legal counsel read in part, with the email exchange leading to the lawsuit brought by Defending Education. The parent who sent the email belonged to the Virginia-based group.
Conservatives view the federal appeals court ruling in favor of free speech rights and basic biology a major win in the culture war.
Thursday’s ruling opposed previous court actions. Previously, U.S. District Court Judge Algenon Marbley of the Southern District of Ohio in Columbus rejected the lawsuit, and in July 2024, a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court upheld Marbley’s decision. As coverage from the Associated Press highlighted, the judges found in July 2024 “that the school district had sufficiently shown that the speech it sought to prohibit would disrupt classroom instruction.”
Judge Eric Murphy’s majority opinion released on Thursday, however, argued that “the Supreme Court’s cases provide a clear answer” to this case. “A school district may not restrict personal speech on matters of public concern unless the speech would ‘materially and substantially disrupt’ school activities or infringe the legal ‘rights of others’ in the school community,” Judge Murphy wrote, citing the Tinker v. Des Moines case from 1969.
“In this case’s current posture, the school district has fallen far short of meeting this demanding standard,” Murphy continued. “It introduced no evidence that the use of biological pronouns would disrupt school functions or qualify as harassment under Ohio law.” .
“Our society continues to debate whether biological pronouns are appropriate or offensive—just as it continues to debate many other issues surrounding transgender rights,” the opinion added. “The school district may not skew this debate by forcing one side to change the way it conveys its message or by compelling it to express a different view.”
“We thus reverse and remand for the entry of an appropriately tailored preliminary injunction barring the district from punishing students for the commonplace use of biological pronouns,” Murphy concluded. The case now goes back to Judge Marbley.Sarah Parshall Perry, previously a Senior Legal Fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, who is also the vice president of Defending Education, celebrated the decision over X.
Perry claimed in a statement that Thursday’s ruling was “a resounding victory for student speech and parental rights was long overdue for families in the school district and we are thrilled the court’s ruling will benefit others seeking to vindicate their rights in the classroom and beyond.”
A statement for The Daily Signal from the school district touched upon highlighting what the court ruled.
“Olentangy Schools remains committed to creating a safe and inclusive environment that facilitates maximum learning for every student. The court’s decision recognizes that schools can prevent bullying and harassment, including where it takes the form of speech targeting an individual’s gender identity. At the same time, the decision provides protection for certain speech around pronoun usage,” the statement acknowledged, also pointing out the outcome of the case going forward. “To that end, the court remanded the case to the trial court to appropriately balance students’ speech interests and the district’s interest in protecting all students from bullying and harassment.”
The statement concluded by mentioning what’s next. “Our expectation remains that all students treat one another with dignity and respect. Civil discourse, free expression, and the sharing of differing viewpoints are essential parts of the academic experience but so is ensuring that students do not face targeted or repeated behavior that creates a hostile or abusive educational environment. We look forward to continuing to participate in the legal process to strike the appropriate balance between protected speech and ensuring protection against bullying and harassment,” it also read.
