Somewhere in Anne Arundel County, a teacher hit send on an email, realized the mistake, and tried to recall it. That single keystroke is now the opening exhibit in a federal lawsuit. The email referred to a student by a male name her parents had never approved. When the parents asked about it, the school claimed it was a mistake, sent to the wrong recipient. That explanation, according to the lawsuit filed this week, was false. The teacher later admitted the name change was real, and so was the secrecy behind it.

America First Legal filed suit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on behalf of two anonymous parents, identified only as John and Jane Doe, against Anne Arundel County Public Schools. The complaint alleges violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, along with parallel provisions of the Maryland Constitution. I spend a lot of time in Fourteenth Amendment case law for a book I am writing on the Constitution's amendments, and this case belongs in the due process tradition running from Meyer v. Nebraska through Pierce v. Society of Sisters: the right of parents to direct their children's upbringing is not a modern invention. It has been settled doctrine for about a century, and it did not stop applying the day a school district decided gender identity was a special category exempt from parental notice.

According to the complaint, the district's policy instructs its staff to use a student's preferred name and pronouns at school and to keep that information shielded from parents unless the student consents to disclosure. When the Does found out their daughter had been socially transitioned at school without their........

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