New Jersey parents are threatening to take on state leadership after Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration filed a lawsuit against their school district for bolstering parental rights.
"He's suing the taxpayers. He's suing the people who don't agree with him. It's a political agenda," Brian Mason, a father of seven, told Fox News Digital. "People are worried about the cost of the lawsuit, but what about when I sue Middletown because a guy goes into the locker room with my daughter?"
Three New Jersey districts – Middletown, Marlboro, and Manalapan-Englishtown Regional – are being sued by the state for adopting similar policies which require teachers and administrators to alert parents if their child begins using a different name, pronouns, or a bathroom that contradicts their sex.
The policies were approved by each district’s Board of Education last Tuesday. Just 24 hours later, New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin filed the three "emergency" lawsuits claiming the districts were endangering the safety of transgender students by enacting the policies.
"They're suing the parents, and they're suing the taxpayers who support the Board of Ed with wanting to know what's going on with their kids in school," Mason, a Middletown resident, said. "Maybe the state's going to force Middletown to reverse the policies, but you're talking about multi-million-dollar lawsuits coming down the road if it does because I'm suing everybody and there's going to be class action lawsuits."
All seven of Mason’s kids attended the Middletown public schools, and four are still in the school system. He attended the Board of Education meeting last week to show support for the new policy.
"We had people mocking us, screaming at us. Very few people from Middletown actually got into the meeting. I would say about 80 to 90 percent of the people were from outside of Middletown and had an agenda. They took over the meeting, they made a mockery of everything, they acted foolish."
Another Middletown parent in attendance to support the policy change was Ann Marie Lusquinos, who has two children currently in the district school system.
"I get a phone call if my kid is absent. I have to sign permission slips for everything, whether it be medicine or whether it be field trips or a syllabus," Lusquinos told Fox News Digital. "And for the attorney general to turn around and say that we can be involved in all that but not involved if our child decides to go by a different gender or a different name? That it’s okay to keep from us?"
In the lawsuit, Platkin stated that "outing" transgender, gender-nonconforming and non-binary students poses "serious mental health risks" and "shirks the District's duty to create a safe and supportive learning environment for all."
"In 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," Platkin later added.
Mason said his advocating for parental notification was not to discriminate against transgender students, but "actually the opposite."
"To say that this is an anti-trans thing is ludicrous because we actually do care for these kids," he said.
"These kids need love and need to be helped," Mason added. "And they're not getting it from Phil Murphy; they're not getting it from the attorney general."
Despite New Jersey being a deep blue state, the districts being sued tend to vote majority Republican, including Murphy’s own home Middletown. Mason said he believes this makes them a target of the progressive governor.
BIDEN'S TITLE IX CHANGES MEAN THIS LOCKER ROOM HORROR IS COMING TO A SCHOOL NEAR YOU
"We didn't get Phil Murphy elected and he's very well aware of that," Mason said. "I think that he likes to target Middletown because of that."
"He doesn't like his community members, to put it lightly," he added. "Phil Murphy is not a friend of the Middletown people."
Both Mason and Lusquinos criticized the governor for being out of touch with the wants and needs of residents.
"His kids didn't go to the Middletown schools," Mason said. "He probably is about a mile and a half from where I'm sitting right now. He's surrounded by state troopers, bodyguards, and yet his neighbors are having cars stolen from their houses on the regular, and he's saying, ‘If you have a firearm in your house, you're ridiculous.’"
"He's not been consistent with the way he lives his life to the way that he governs," Mason added.
Lusquinos said Murphy is "not concerned with the overall welfare of the children of Middletown."
"That is why we are blessed to have the board that we have because he is not taking my children into account," he said.
Daniel Francisco, a father from Englishtown, another target of the state, pulled his son out of public school during the pandemic due to frustration with administrators and the lack of care being shown to students. He said parents advocating for change in public schools are fighting a losing battle.
"I sympathize with you if you go and fight once, maybe twice," Francisco told Fox News Digital. "At some point it's incumbent on you as a parent to realize, I keep putting my hand on the stove and I keep getting burned. Except in this metaphor, it's your child's getting burned."
Francisco said the only way to win against government overreach in your child’s education is "to deprive the system of resources," and unenroll kids from government schools.
"Your child is healthier, safer and better sitting at home doing nothing rather than being in that government building and in a public school in New Jersey, or anywhere else for that matter," he added.
However, Lusquinos said she has faith the policy changes will hold and that parents can continue to fight off government encroachment.
"Middletown is ready to fight, going to fight," she said. "The parents and the community are coming behind the board to show them support, that they're not just getting backlash from the opposition and the activists."
