A Wyoming federal judge Monday ruled against a Rock Springs couple who sued their local school district on claims the district helped to socially gender-transition their high school daughter without their knowledge or consent.
Sean and Ashley Willey’s lawsuit, aided with the past few months of evidence exchanged with Sweetwater County School District No. 1, doesn’t carry enough proof that the school district violated their parental or religious rights, U.S. District Court Judge Scott Skavdahl ruled.
He judged the case early in the school district’s favor and dismissed it.
The couple has promised to appeal.
"We are disappointed with the court's decision to grant summary judgment and wholeheartedly disagree with the court's analysis of uncontroverted evidence of the Defendants' actions as applied to legal precedent," wrote the Willeys' attorney Ernie Trakas in a statement sent Tuesday to Cowboy State Daily. "We believe the court got it wrong and its decision regrettably ignores acknowledged acts by the Defendants that clearly violated the Willey family's constitutionally protected parental right to make decisions concerning the health and wellbeing of their children, and to freely exercise their religious beliefs. We will be appealing this erroneous decision."
Sean and Ashley Willey’s daughter attended Black Butte High School in Rock Springs, Wyoming, from 2021-2023. During that time, peers and multiple teachers started referring to her by a male name and pronouns.
Her mother Ashley Willey, who is a teacher in another school in the district, did not learn of her daughter’s new identity until a district-wide training March 29, 2022.
Another teacher referred to her daughter by a male name, prompting intense inquiry from Ashley Willey and a chain reaction of events culminating in a federal lawsuit against the school.
Ashley Willey messaged the district staff and personnel telling them to call her daughter by her given names and female pronouns.
The following fall semester, Aug. 15, 2022, the district adopted a policy whereby staffers had to sign an agreement to honor students’ requests to go by alternate names or pronouns, and it said, “staff must respect the privacy of all students regarding such choice.”
Also during that school year a teacher, Ben Audevart, sent the Willeys’ daughter links to LGBTQ+ youth advocacy sites, and told the student how she could hide her access of one of those sites from others, court documents and evidence show.
The following fall and after the Willeys launched their lawsuit, the district softened its policy, this time only allowing confidentiality about pronouns if the student’s health or safety is at risk — and offering accommodations to staffers who couldn’t comply fully.
The school district leadership on Tuesday celebrated the court's ruling.
"We very much appreciate the court’s recognition of the facts in this case,” said Sweetwater Schools Superintendent Dr. Joseph A. Libby in a statement sent to Cowboy State DAily. “One of the most important facts is that we have a deep and abiding respect for parental rights even as we also uphold our commitment to promote an educational environment that is supportive and respectful to all our students. And it’s worth noting U.S. District Judge’s Scott W. Skavdahl’s assertion: ‘A respectful and nondiscriminatory school environment is a legitimate state interest.’ We could not agree more.”
Superintendent Libby said the case is an important reinforcement of both parental rights and a school district’s obligation to respect them. “At the same time, we’re glad to put this behind us,” Libby said, “and continue to focus on our vision of working with our community every day to prepare all our students for success in life.”
One After Another
One after another, Skavdahl ruled the Willeys’ claims unfit for trial given the evidence carrying them.
Sean Willey doesn’t have standing because he’s the girl’s stepfather, not her father.
Ashley Willey had argued that the district violated her constitutional right to the care, custody and control of her children.
It’s a fundamental right the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized.
But it doesn’t create a burden for schools to announce to parents a “laundry list” of things that might affect a child’s upbringing, wrote Skavdahl.
The school honored the student’s request to be called by male name and pronouns, but it didn’t actively hide that from the parents, and didn’t lie when confronted, the judge continued.
“According to (the Willeys’ logic), if a parent is not already aware of their child’s use of preferred name or pronouns, then in order to make those decisions, the school would have an obligation to proactively inform the parent,” the judge added.
If the judge were to place on the school district a duty to inform parents of every possible change in their children’s mental health to uphold the right to raise one’s children, it “would require constant, detailed information sharing from the school, with constitutional consequences.”
Ashley Willey had argued that during one of her detailed meetings with the school about her daughter, school staffers should have told her of her daughter’s name and pronouns.
Skavdahl disagreed, saying that too would layer obligations on the school and open up new and cumbersome, “affirmative” duties.
Teacher Gone Rogue
The Willeys had pointed to Audevart’s emails to their child as proof that the school’s “privacy” policy about pronouns was being mobilized to violate their rights.
But those emails violated the school’s policies in other ways and therefore were outside its directives and approval, the judge noted, agreeing with the school’s own argument about those emails.
“The District is not liable for the actions taken by an individual teacher without the authority of the District,” wrote Skavdahl.
Freedom Of Religion
Ashley Willey had alleged that the school violated her freedom of religion, both as a parent and as a teacher, with its pronoun policy.
As a parent, she waged the right to train her children regarding “human sexual identity and the unchangeable natural created order of humans as male and female,” says the judge’s order.
Skavdahl declined to question her religious beliefs, but said Ashley Willey failed to show how those were burdened by the school district’s actions, which again, he cast as passively and simply honoring the student’s wish to be called by “preferred” name and pronouns.
“A person’s constitutional right to freely exercise their own religious beliefs does not require that the state also exercise those same religious beliefs,” wrote Skavdahl.
Quoting from an earlier case, he added, “The Free Exercise Clause is ‘written in terms of what the government can do to the individual, not in terms of what the individual can extract from the government.’”
To make the district act in accordance with Ashley Willey’s religious beliefs “would turn the First Amendment on its head,” he added.
And As A Teacher
Ashley Willey pointed to her religious duty to tell the truth, in conflict with the school’s former policy about respecting students’ “privacy” regarding their preferred names.
Ashley Willey’s religious beliefs were potentially burdened by the former policy. But the policy survives that challenge because it is a “neutral law of general applicability,” wrote Skavdahl. In other words, the policy may impact one’s religious beliefs but it doesn’t target them.
The later policy offered reasonable accommodations, the judge noted. That doesn’t signal that it fails the neutrality test, he added.
And both the old and new policies are tied to “promoting a respectful and nondiscriminatory environment,” and they survive constitutional challenges, Skavdahl concluded.
Skavdahl ordered the case dismissed.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
