{"id":14424,"date":"2023-06-25T04:24:14","date_gmt":"2023-06-25T09:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=14424"},"modified":"2023-06-25T04:24:18","modified_gmt":"2023-06-25T09:24:18","slug":"new-jerseys-attorney-general-files-civil-rights-complaints-against-three-school-districts-alleging-discrimination-against-lgbtq-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=14424","title":{"rendered":"New Jersey\u2019s attorney general files civil rights complaints against three school districts alleging discrimination against LGBTQ+ students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Just days after three New Jersey public school systems simultaneously enacted policies requiring educators to notify parents of changes in their children\u2019s gender identity, the state is pursuing legal action.
New Jersey State Attorney General Matthew Platkin\u00a0announced the complaints\u00a0against the Middletown Township, Marlboro Township and Manalapan-Englishtown Regional boards of education, all in Monmouth County.
In a series of complaints filed in a New Jersey Superior Court, the state alleges policies requiring staff to notify parents when students express desire to change names, pronouns or bathroom and\/or locker accommodations \u201ctarget transgender, gender non-conforming, and gender non-binary students by singling them out for differential treatment, requiring parental notification for those students but not their peers.\u201d
In separate companion legal briefs, Platkin also petitions the court to temporarily halt the policy changes from taking effect while legal challenges play out.
\u201cIn New Jersey, we will not tolerate any action by schools that threatens the health and safety of our young people. Without question, the discriminatory policies passed by these Boards of Education, if allowed to go into effect, will harm our kids and pose severe risk to their safety,\u201d said Attorney General Platkin in a statement. \u201cSimply put, these policies violate our laws, and we will not relent in protecting our LGBTQ+ community \u2013 especially our children \u2013 from discrimination.\u201d
When contacted by phone on Friday, a representative of the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District declined to comment on the matter.
CNN has reached out to the Middletown Township Public School District.
Marc H. Zitomer, who represents the Marlboro Townhip Board of Education, told CNN he disagrees with the attorney general\u2019s argument that schools are discriminating against LQBTQ+ students.
\u201cWe also have an exception in our policy if such notification would endanger the health or safety of the child,\u201d Zitomer says.
\u201cHowever, it is our position that keeping parents in the dark about important issues involving their children is counterintuitive and contrary to well established Supreme Court case law that says that parents have a constitutional right to direct and control the upbringing of their children,\u201d adds Zitomer.
During a Tuesday school board meeting, Valentina Mendez, who chairs Marlboro Township School\u2019s policy committee, defended the changes as taking a \u201cfamily-centered approach.\u201d
\u201cBecause Marlboro Public School District is a PreK-8 District with no high school,\u201d said Mendez, \u201cthe board believes that greater parental involvement is important and required because of the age and maturity of the student body.\u201d
During public remarks, a member who identifies as part of Marlboro\u2019s LGBTQ+ community expressed concern that children will feel forced to out themselves before they are ready and erode the confidence they have in their teachers.
\u201cStudents have very delicate relationships with their teachers now more than ever before,\u201d said the community member. \u201cMy teachers are in this room. I trusted them with my life. We\u2019re going to break that trust. We\u2019re going to shatter that trust.\u201d
Other Marlboro community members expressed support for the changes, saying they are \u201cpractical\u201d and will strengthen trust between teachers, students, and their parents.
In May, state officials also filed a civil rights complaint after similar changes were enacted at the Hanover Township Board of Education.
The litigation challenging that policy remains pending. A Superior Court, however, issued a temporary restraining order barring that board of education from enforcing that policy while it considers the matter.
CNN<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just days after three New Jersey public school systems simultaneously enacted policies requiring educators to notify parents of changes in their children\u2019s gender identity, the state is pursuing legal action.New Jersey State Attorney General Matthew Platkin\u00a0announced the complaints\u00a0against the Middletown Township, Marlboro Township and Manalapan-Englishtown Regional boards of education, all in Monmouth County.In a series […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14425,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9060,8199,4018,9061],"class_list":["post-14424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-civil-rights-complaints","tag-lgbtq-2","tag-new-jersey","tag-restriction-order"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14426,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14424\/revisions\/14426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}