July 21, 2023 / By mobanmarket
MIDDLETOWN, NJ — As of Wednesday, there are three new updates to the NJ Attorney General suing the Middletown, Manalapan and Marlboro school districts for their transgender student policies:
Update #1: Last Friday, June 23, lawyers for the Middletown school district filed a motion to move the case to Monmouth County Superior Court. Essex County Superior Court Judge Jodi Lee Alper granted Middletown’s request and going forward, the lawsuit against Middletown will now be heard in Monmouth County.
NJ Attorney General Matt Platkin originally filed his lawsuits against all three districts June 21 in Essex County, but Middletown’s lawyers argued that because Middletown is a public school district located in Monmouth, that is where the case should be heard.
Hon. Alper appeared to agree with Middletown, and she granted their request to transfer the case to “home turf” of Monmouth County.
Update #2: Secondly, the Attorney General is seeking an injunction against the Middletown school district, meaning it seeks to prevent the district from implementing its policy that has caused such controversy, where parents will be informed if a student seeks to officially go by a new name, gender pronoun, use a different bathroom or play on a different sports team.
The “new” news as of Wednesday is that the Middletown school district has agreed to “stay” (not implement) its transgender policy until the Monmouth County Superior Court makes a decision.
The lawyers representing the Middletown school district are Matawan-based law firm Cleary, Giacobbe, Alfieri & Jacobs. Bruce Padula is the lawyer for the Middletown school district and he works for Cleary, Giacobbe, Alfieri & Jacobs.
Mitchell Jacobs is one of the firm’s partners and together, he and Padula are defending Middletown in what is shaping up to be a historic fight against the state over parental rights.
Padula is the man who wrote Middletown’s transgender student policy that has garnered so much controversy, although he has since refused to answer any questions from the media about it.
Update #3: Middletown appears to be part of a growing grassroots movement of parents who want to be informed. On Wednesday night, the Colts Neck Board of Education is poised to approve a similar policy that will require parental notification in certain instances with students who identify as transgender. Read that story from the Colts Neck Patch: Transgender Student Policy To Be Voted On By Colts Neck BOE
State wants people to inform them of school districts being “discriminatory”
And finally, on Wednesday, June 28 the NJ Attorney General and Acting Department of Education Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan issued this joint statement warning other school districts across New Jersey that the state will broadly use New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination to fight policies imposed by local school boards that the AG finds are discriminatory
The AG also said local districts have to comply with the state’s controversial rules on sex ed. curriculum, which was met with quite a bit of backlash from parents last year.
The Attorney General also wants parents and students to tell his office if they think a school district is being discriminatory.
You can read the AG’s entire statement here. It reads in part:
“Some school boards and legislators have recently introduced proposals in New Jersey and across the country to restrict classroom discussions and staff training about race, racism, gender, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation; to remove symbols or signs that express support for, or oppose bullying of, members of certain historically excluded groups; and to ban books by and about people of color and LGBTQIA+ people.”
“At times, school board members have also opposed efforts to comply with state curricular requirements that students be taught certain topics related to race, gender, or sexual orientation, and have opposed efforts by individual teachers to instruct students on these required materials.”
“The Law Against Discrimination (LAD) also prohibits policies or practices that create a hostile environment based on any protected characteristic. School policies or practices violate the LAD when they expressly discriminate on the basis of a protected characteristic … To alert the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights to a district that has or is considering a discriminatory policy, please email us at [email protected]. To find out more or to file a complaint, please go to NJCivilRights.gov or call 1.833.NJDCR4”
NJ Sues Middletown, 2 Other Districts For Transgender Student Policies (June 22)
Middletown BOE Approves Controversial Transgender Student Policy (June 21)
Manalapan School District Hopes To Meet With State On Trans Policy (June 26): Manalapan-Englishtown school board wants to work with Attorney General to create “template” for transgender student parental notification
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