SAN DIEGO — A federal judge ordered an Escondido middle school to allow two teachers who sued the district over a policy aimed at protecting transgender students‘ identities back into the classroom.
The Rincon Middle School teachers, Lori Ann West and Elizabeth Mirabelli, have been on paid administrative leave since May, when they filed the lawsuit against the Escondido Union School District alleging violations of their First Amendment rights.
“I’m shocked! I’m still processing. I cannot believe it,” West told FOX 5 on Wednesday after the ruling from the judge to allow her back into the classroom.
She and Mirabelli pursued legal action to challenge an EUSD privacy policy that required teachers to get a students’ consent before disclosing their gender identity to their parents was of their First Amendment rights.
According to the suit, teachers are also required to refer to students by their preferred names and pronouns at school, reverting to biological pronouns and legal names when speaking with the students’ parents if the student did not give consent for them to disclose that information.
District officials said that the policy was put in place to protect transgender students who may not yet be comfortable with coming out to their parents. Only about one in three LGBTQ+ youth live in LGBTQ-affirming homes, according to a 2021 survey conduced by the Trevor Project.
“They learned about this policy that was being enforced that would require them to hide material information about their students from the student’s parents, and in many cases to lie to the parents,” the teachers’ attorney, Paul Jonna, said. “They just wanted to continue their jobs without having to comply with an illegal and unconstitutional policy.”
In a September ruling, the federal judge hearing the case agreed with the teachers, striking down the privacy policy for possible violations of the Constitution.
For West and Mirabelli, that should have meant they would be able to get back to work as soon as possible, but they say that did not happen.
“When the case was first filed, there was some retaliation and harassment directed at our clients,” Jonna said. “The investigation was supposed to be concluded in 30 days. It ended up taking over five months after the injunction issued. They told us the investigation was cleared, and then conveniently, the very next day or couple days later, they said, a new complaint had been made against Lorie and she’s going to be placed on leave again.”
After months of back and forth with attorneys for the Escondido Unified School District Jonna filed a motion to hold the the district in contempt. The judge denied that motion, but instead ordered the district to allow them back to work.
“Judges are typically reluctant to hold parties in contempt,” Jonna said. “It’s a pretty serious penalty, but what he did … I view it as a warning to them if they violate his orders again, it’s going be much more serious.”
Mirabelli was not in court on Wednesday due to health reasons, but West says she is excited to get back to work and harbors no ill will towards the school district.
“Maybe they thought they were doing right thing – they think they’re protecting kids and I think I am protecting kids,” West said. “We have a different point of view and that’s OK.”
FOX 5’s Danielle Dawson contributed to this report.