Transcript of A School’s Secret Intervention and a Mother’s Legal Reckoning

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In December of 2022, Amber Levine got a huge surprise while cleaning her young daughter's bedroom. She discovered clothing used to flatten breasts. She was even more surprised to hear her daughter had gotten it from her school social worker. Now, Amber is asking the Supreme Court to make sure this doesn't happen to another parent.

In this episode, we sit down with Amber and the attorney representing her in front of the high court. I'm Daily Wire executive editor, John Bickley with Georgia Howe. This is a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

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Joining us now is Amber Levine and her attorney, Adam Shelton from the Shelton Goldwater Institute. Welcome to the show.

Thanks for having us.

Yes, thank you for having us.

Amber, I wanted to start with the beginning of all this. First, what did you think when you found that chest binder in your daughter's room? How old was she? How surprised were you? What was that like in that first discovery?

She was 13 at the time. I didn't know much about breast binding at the time, but I knew it wasn't a typical sports bra. I knew that it wasn't something I had purchased for my daughter, so I was very curious where it came from. I knew it was going to take a conversation or two to parcel out with my daughter where it came from, but I was confused and concerned for sure.

What did you learn when you asked her about it?

I learned that she received this binder from a social worker at her school. Not only did she receive one, but she received a second one as well, which raised great concern and lots of questions because I didn't even know she was meeting with this specific social worker at the time. So I immediately reached out to the school for answers.

Did she say she was in the process of socially transitioning?

She didn't say much, to be honest with you. She was a little embarrassed, a little taken aback that I had found this binder, and she was keeping it from me. Like any 13-year-old, when they're caught in a lie with their parents, she didn't have much to say at first, but she did know that I was pursuing conversations with the school at the time about it. But no, she wasn't necessarily saying that at the time she was socially transitioning. She was just trying to cover her tracks in the moment.

So did you have any prior warnings at all that something was going on?

I knew that she was feeling some anxiety, not necessarily surrounding gender, but I had connected her with a therapist, a community therapist, the spring prior to finding these binders in December of 2022. So the spring of 2021, she began seeing a community therapist that she and I found for her, mostly for some anxiety and depression she was experiencing.

Now, we've seen a pattern of a lot of these therapists pushing kids in this direction. Did that therapist seem to encourage this, or was this more the school and the social worker?

It was more the school. The community therapist that I was working with was working very closely with me, was being very honest and open with what was going on with my daughter. But this is a therapist that I sought out within the community Which I tell parents all the time, if your student or your child needs help and they are in a public school setting, please go find a community therapist. Don't enlist the school social workers to help with this stuff because a lot of them are very young and not as well trained as a lot of the community therapists, and you just have more options.

Now, the school is a public school in Maine, the Great Salt Bay Community School. What did school officials say when you did reach out to them?

At first, they expressed some concern, and it was a Friday evening when I sent the initial email, so they met with me on Monday. So pretty quickly they reacted. In hindsight, in the email, I mentioned a binder, and the principal called me on Saturday, Monday. And she expressed concern with what the binder contained as if it was a three-ring binder like you would find in a school setting. In hindsight, I think that was her trying to buy some time to try and rally her people to figure out how to cover their tracks. But in the moment, I thought it was a genuine like, what was in this binder? I think she knew what I was talking about immediately. They met with me on Monday, expressed great concern, met with the social worker on Tuesday. By Wednesday, they were telling me that the social worker didn't do anything wrong. At that point, I had pulled my daughter from school, and now here we are.

They quickly defended the social worker. You pulled your daughter out of the school, and now you're taking legal action. Which brings us to you, Adam, what were the legal steps? How did we get to this point where the case may be taken up by the Supreme Court?

From a legal point of view, we sent a letter to the school explaining our view of the law and the situation and asking them to change their policy and to make it explicit that these types of steps could not be taken without at the very least parental notice and notifying parents that this was happening. The school refused to change their policy, so we, on behalf of Amber, filed the lawsuit in the federal district court for Maine. Unfortunately, both the district court in Maine and then the first three court of appeals in Boston ruled against the claims.

What were the arguments from those courts, the district and appeals courts? Why did they rule against you? What was their claims?

The Court of appeals determined that there was a obvious alternative explanation for the school's conduct, and that was that there's a main law that allows a school counselor to establish a confidential relationship with the child. They said that the first circuit believe that that law protected this conduct or protected the policy here, which is entirely besides the point, because as we all know, the US Constitution trumps any state law.

Right. On that point, you may maintain that Amber's constitutional rights have been violated. Can you unpack that legal argument for us?

Absolutely. The Supreme Court has held for over a century now that parents have a fundamental right to control and direct the education and upbringing of their children. But a parent can't meaningfully do that, can't meaningfully decide whether or not a specific school remains the best educational environment for their child. If school officials are withholding information from parents, especially information that directly affects the mental health or physical well-being of a child. That's exactly what happened here. Important information was withheld from Amber, and it prevented her for a certain amount of time from making the determination of whether or not the Great Salt Bay Community School remained the best educational environment for a child. When she found out about the information, she determined that it wasn't the best educational environment for a child going forward.

This is a pretty conservative Supreme Court overall. Do you anticipate that any precedent that they've set in their rulings will eventually work to your favor?

I think so. Just a year and a half, two years ago, the Supreme Court held in a religious freedom claim that parents had the right to opt out their children from certain lessons. Now, we're bringing a strictly parental rights claim, but the logic of that claim applies directly to this claim as well. I think it's important to know that Some of the justices on the court, especially Justice Solido, have taken issue with some of these procedural steps that lower courts have taken to evade answering these important parental rights questions.

What about active cases? Are there other similar cases right now that relate this in some way?

There are two other cases that are currently being petitioned to the US Supreme Court right now. All these cases are at the very early stages from a litigation point of view. Basically, in every one of these cases, the government or the school has filed what's known as a motion to dismiss. So it prevents discovery from happening. It prevents any fact finding from happening. So right now, there are two other cases besides Amber's case that are on appeal to this US Supreme Court. And there have been others in recent years where, again, Justice Alito has noted that lower courts been using fancy procedural mechanisms to evade answering these questions. And this case prevents another one of those situations. So we're hopeful the Supreme Court will take up this case, one of these other cases soon, and really answer an important national question about what parental rights mean, especially in a public school setting.

One more legal question. Is there an opportunity for your case to maybe be combined with other cases, as we've seen with the transgender sports cases from Idaho and West Virginia?

That's something the Court chooses to do. And I would say that those other two cases aren't really relevant to this particular case, which really just involves parental rights and parental notice. That there are other parental rights claims that are currently pending. In this case, could potentially be combined with one of those or the Supreme Court may do something known as essentially pausing this case if they take up one of those other cases while they decide one of those other cases. But that's all largely up to the Supreme Court and not really one of our choices that we have. All we can do is the court to take up the case and say this is a really pressing national issue that needs their intervention.

So, Amber, a couple of final questions for you. First of all, how is your relationship with your daughter doing today? If you feel comfortable talking about that, I'd love to hear about it.

Sure. I feel very strongly that I need to protect her privacy, but I can't speak to our relationship. Our relationship for a brief moment in time was definitely strained because of adults that I trusted, which is tough to swallow, I think, for both of us as she's inched into her 16th year, which is crazy that she's 16. But our relationship is great. We attend a lot of wonderful performances together and things like that. We spend a lot of time just trying to connect just she and I. I have two younger children. Her brothers are nine and 12 years younger than her. And so I try to spend some time just she and I because a lot of the stuff that I'm doing with her are things that 16-year-old girls are not interested in. But yeah, our relationship is great.

I think a lot of parents probably are afraid, first of all, about what happens to their relationship with their child if they come in too strong, if they're maybe heavy-handed. That's good to hear that your relationship's so good. Broadening out on the larger issue here, there's lots of cases, I'm sure, just like yours, Amber, in terms of parents feeling blindsided by what's going on in the schools. There are some states that do have protections for parents, but many don't. Have you had other parents reach out to you, and what advice would you offer them?

I've connected with people, honestly, across the world at this point because of this very issue. I attended a wonderful summit for parents that free psychotherapists across the world put together for parents. I met approximately 20 to 25 other families who have kids who are going through something similar, and their stories are heartbreaking, to be fair. It's really difficult to hear how impacted parents are because of what's going on with their kids. They feel like they can't speak out oftentimes. So yes, I've had many people, because I've been so vocal, reach out to me. I think there are a few things that parents can do to try and mitigate this from happening with their kids. First of all, if you can, pull your kids out of public school currently. I just don't feel public schools, and I don't blame teachers. I think there are some amazing teachers out there who don't know how to handle their own morals and values being conflicted with administration, telling them that this is how they have to handle things. I think that's why we're finding a lot of teachers leaving the field. If you can, get them out of public schools.

Secondly, we need to pay more attention to what our kids are doing online. I think that a lot of parents are so afraid to let their kids take a walk downtown with a friend, but they let their kids have free reign of the internet. I think the internet is far more dangerous, especially in a wonderful state like Maine, where crime rates are very low. Let your kids go explore the outdoor world and have them put the technology away. There's a lot of nefarious stuff going on online. We've all fallen down rabbit holes on the internet, so our kids are no different. I think that that's another thing that parents need to do. You need to connect to your kids. I think that parents, too, end up on technology far more than they should be. They're not neglecting their kids, but they're not spending quality time with their children anymore. Sit down and have dinner with your kids every night and ask them what their favorite part of the day was. Connecting with your children in a deeper way than just passing by like ships in the night is really important as well. It's easy to get caught up in the day to day.

I work a lot. I get it. I go home. I'm tired at night, but you have to make time for quality family time.

Well, I, for one, never fail to make quality family time. I'm kidding. Of course, it's really hard. I think a lot of parents do feel alone in these circumstances. You mentioned you had one counselor that seemed to be very helpful. You've talked to other parents. There are resources. Do you have any advice in terms of where people should look for help?

Yeah. I have a long list of resources for people that I email out to people all the time. I think one great spot to go to if you're trying to learn more about what's going on with gender is a great podcast called Gender: A Wider Lens. Actually, they stopped recording last year, but they have a great library of resources. They've interviewed everybody in the gender world at this point. Their names are Stella O'Malley and Sasha Ayad. The two women who facilitate that podcast are two of the women who facilitated the summit that I went to. I've met them in person. They're very compassionate people who really care about these kids and understand that they are going through something heavy. They also really care about what parents are going through. I do think that oftentimes parents are just this lost population amongst all of this, and they're really struggling. I think that's a great starting point. They both have parents groups that meet, some weekly, some monthly. They're all parents who are going through something similar. It's like anything else. It's like AA. It's a support group of people who really understand and can connect with you in a way that people who haven't experienced this can't.

That's a good starting point, but there's a plethora of resources out there.

Final question, what is the next step legally for this appeal?

The Supreme Court is going to consider this issue. The school board has until January 28th to reply to the petition. That just depends on when the Supreme Court wants to review it, and it's really up to them. But we're very hopeful that the Supreme Court can take a serious look at this case because it does present an issue of national importance.

Well, many parents across the country would certainly agree with that, I'm sure. Thank you so much, both of you, for coming on the show.

Thank you, John. Thank you.

That was Amber Levine, an attorney, Adam Shilton, and this has been a weekend edition of Warning Wire. Nice. Wow.

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