209. When Schools Keep Secrets: Parental Rights, Teachers & the Supreme Court | Dean Broyles

209. When Schools Keep Secrets: Parental Rights, Teachers & the Supreme Court | Dean Broyles

From You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist by Stephanie Winn

April 13, 2026 · 1h 29m

About this episode

Dean Broyles discusses the legal implications of parental rights and gender identity policies in public schools.

Constitutional attorney Dean Broyles, president of the National Center for Law and Policy, joins me to continue untangling the legal battles reshaping how public schools handle gender identity — and what they mean for parents, teachers, and students. Picking up where we left off with Laura Powell in episode 207 , Dean begins with a detailed breakdown of the Mirabelli v. Bonta case, which started in Escondido, California, when two Catholic teachers refused to comply with “gender secrets” policies requiring them to conceal a child’s gender identity from parents. Dean walks us through Judge Bonita’s landmark ruling, which found that California’s parental exclusion policies create a “trifecta of harm” to children, parents, and teachers alike — and the March 2nd Supreme Court decision reinstating the statewide injunction squarely on the side of parental rights. We go deep on what these rulings mean in practice: the secret “shadow records” schools have been keeping on students’ gender identities, the religious accommodation rights teachers can assert against California’s coercive PRISM training, and the student free speech protections guaranteed by Tinker v. Des Moines. Dean explains…

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