In December, in a surprising turn of events, the U.S. Supreme Court passed on hearing a conservative-led challenge to Eau Claire School District’s gender support policy. The policy does not require the schools to inform parents if their children choose to change their name, gender identity, pronouns, and use the bathrooms for their identified rather than assigned gender. The guidance goes on to “encourage transgender students to reach out to staff members with concerns and instructs employees to be careful who they talk to about a student’s gender identity, since not all students are ‘out’ to their families,” according to an article by Wisconsin Public Radio. The complainants, a group calling themselves “ Parents Protecting Our Children,” alleged that their constitutional rights were violated in not being informed.

The Supreme Court did not take the case, according to WPR, because none of them were actually affected by the policy, and therefore their rights were not being violated. Sixteen conservative-led states urged the court to take up the case, but “the justices left in place an appellate court ruling dismissing the parents’ lawsuit. Three of nine justices, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, would have heard the case,” according to the same article. Alito stated in his dissenting opinion, “Whether a public school district violates parents’ fundamental constitutional right to make decisions concerning the rearing of their children when, without parental knowledge or consent, it encourages a student to transition to a new gender or assists in that process. We are told that more than 1,000 districts have adopted such policies.”

Despite threats to continue with similar lawsuits, Eau Claire School Board President Tim Nordin is eager to get back to work running a school district. “As a district we are always trying to do our level best to help our students and families,” Nordin said. “We’re going to just continue to work through our district mission of helping students to lead creative, fulfilling, and responsible lives.” Brian Juchems, senior director of education at GSAFE, applauded the decision, arguing that the lawsuit was an attempt on the part of some families and parents to “dictate for all families how schools should do their work to make sure kids feel safe, available for learning, and alive.”