NH Supreme Court Upholds Manchester School District Policy Supporting Transgender Students

On Friday, August 30, the New Hampshire Supreme Court today affirmed a lower court ruling upholding a Manchester school district policy in support of transgender students, which includes referring to students by their requested names and pronouns and maintaining student privacy when appropriate. The Court concluded that "[T]he plaintiff has failed to demonstrate that the Policy infringes a fundamental parenting right."

"Schools must provide a welcoming and supportive environment for all students.Today's decision upholds that core value and allows schools to manage the educational environment so that all students have an equal and safe opportunity to learn," said Chris Erchull, Senior Staff Attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders.

"We are pleased with the court's decision to affirm what we already know, that students deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and have a right to freely express who they are without the fear of being forcibly outed." said Henry Klementowicz, Deputy Legal Director at the ACLU of New Hampshire. "Removing the Manchester School District's existing, affirming policy would have created an environment where LGBTQ+ students don't feel safe being who they are—and in school, they should feel safe, cared for, and able to learn to the best of their ability."

In today's decision the Court cited language from the trial court's ruling regarding the Manchester School District Policy:

[T]he Policy does not prevent parents from observing their children's behavior, moods, and activities; talking to their children; providing religious or other education to their children; choosing where their children live and go to school; obtaining medical care and counseling for their children; monitoring their children's communications on social media; choosing with whom their children may socialize; and deciding what their children may do in their free time. In short, the Policy places no limits on the plaintiff's ability to parent her child as she sees fit.

GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and the ACLU of New Hampshire represented New Hampshire parent Heather Romeri and her son Nico, a New Hampshire high school student, on a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the case, Jane Doe v. Manchester School District.

"I'm so grateful that Nico has the support he needs in school," said Nico's mother, Heather Romeri, at the time their brief was filed. "Of course I want my child to feel he can talk to me about anything, but above all I want him to feel safe and happy. I understand that he needed to be able to talk about what he was going through with others before he came to me, and I'm so glad he had that chance, just as I am glad that he had the chance to see how much his family loves and supports him once he was ready to come to us."

"It was important for me to have the support of other people I could trust to help me feel ready to talk to my parents, especially people who could help make it easier for me to talk to my mom," said Nico Romeri, a New Hampshire transgender high school student. "Transgender students want the same opportunity to learn and be ourselves, just like any kid, without having to worry that adults at school will violate our trust. If someone had decided to tell my mom what they thought about my gender, it would have made things so much harder for me at school and at home."