Platkin v. Hanover Township Board of Education

[Editor’s Note: The casebook excerpt is not a court decision with a rule of law and a holding, but a complaint seeking a temporary injunction. The complaint is summarized here.] In 2018, the New Jersey Department of Education issued guidance that a school should keep a student’s transgender status confidential and private. This guidance also stated that schools had no affirmative duty to notify parents of a student’s status and that schools should not disclose a student’s status unless required due to “a specific and compelling need, such as the health and safety of a student or an incident of bias-related crime.” In 2019, the Hanover Township Board of Education (the board) (defendant) enacted a policy for the Hanover Township Public Schools (the school district) (defendant) for the purpose of creating a safe and inclusive environment for transgender students. In 2023, the board enacted a new policy requiring staff members to notify a student’s parents if the staff member learned of various circumstances “that may have a material impact” on the student’s physical health, mental health, safety, or emotional well-being, including the student’s sexual orientation or gender identity or that the student was transitioning. Comments made by the board indicated that the policy’s purpose was to require that a school notify a student’s parents if the school learned that the student was gay or transgender, also known as “outing” an individual. If a school believed informing the parent might lead to abuse or neglect of the student, the school was still obligated to inform the parent but also to notify the appropriate state authorities. In May 2023, the New Jersey Attorney General, Matthew Platkin (plaintiff), and the Director of the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights, Sundeep Iyer (plaintiff), filed an administrative complaint with the state’s Division on Civil Rights, alleging that the board’s 2023 policy unlawfully discriminated against students on the basis of gender identity. The same day, Platkin and Iyer filed a complaint in New Jersey state court, seeking a temporary injunction preventing the board from enforcing the 2023 policy until the administrative complaint was resolved. This state-court complaint alleged that the board’s 2023 policy treated some students differently based on characteristics protected by state law, including sexual orientation and gender identity, subjecting these students to constant surveillance and the risk of being outed to family or peers. The complaint further alleged that this surveillance and any resulting unwelcome disclosures of student information violated the state’s 2018 confidentiality guidance, deprived the students of a safe learning environment, and posed a serious risk to the student’s mental and physical health—including an increased risk of suicide. The complaint argued that allowing enforcement of the 2023 policy would cause significant, irreversible harm to students, so the board and the school district should be ordered to hold off on implementing or enforcing the policy while its legality was being challenged in the administrative proceeding.