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Ken interviews attorney Ron Berutti. · The Mark Simone Show

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  Speaker 1: The Mark Simone Show Live from the War Life Back Studios.
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  Speaker 1: Guest hosting from Mark Today, Here's King Rosato and so
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  Speaker 1: good to be with you on a Friday seven ten
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  Speaker 1: woor the Voice of New York. You know school districts
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  Speaker 1: that are keeping secrets from parents when children socially transition
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  Speaker 1: in school, they're now in for rude awakening. There is
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  Speaker 1: now a lawsuit against the New Jersey school district regarding
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  Speaker 1: student gender identity. Attorney Ronald Berruti filed suit against the
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  Speaker 1: district that was allegedly socially transitioning a child without telling
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  Speaker 1: the parents and without their consent. The school says under
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  Speaker 1: New Jersey State Policy fifty seven fifty six, they have
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  Speaker 1: no obligation to notify the parents and the doing so
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  Speaker 1: would violate students privacy and safety. But saying people say
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  Speaker 1: this is a violation of parental rights. Attorney Ronald Berruti,
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  Speaker 1: good morning and welcome to the Mark Simone Show.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, good morning, Ken, thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 1: You bet so talk about the main argument in your complaint.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, in the complaint that we have in state court,
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  Speaker 2: a child, a minor child of a married couple. He
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  Speaker 2: is in school and decides that she wanted to start
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  Speaker 2: being called by a boy's name and wanted to change
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  Speaker 2: her pronouns. So the school district then began honoring her
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  Speaker 2: wishes and created a whole separate set of records of
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  Speaker 2: using a petitive boy's name instead of her given name,
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  Speaker 2: and then kept its secrets from the parents, who eventually
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  Speaker 2: found out not from the school. And so the argument
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  Speaker 2: is that the parents have an absolute constitutional right under
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  Speaker 2: the fourteenth Amendment to their parental rights are being violated.
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  Speaker 2: And also they have religious objections to this practice. And
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  Speaker 2: because they did not have an opportunity to opt out
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  Speaker 2: of what is the school wide school district wide policy
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  Speaker 2: promoted by the state. No less, so they didn't have
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  Speaker 2: an opportunity to opt out, their first Amendment free exercise
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  Speaker 2: rights are also being violated.
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  Speaker 1: Now, describe what this is when we're talking about policy
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  Speaker 1: fifty seven to fifty six in New Jersey, and is
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  Speaker 1: that constitutional?
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  Speaker 2: No. Our argument is that it is not. The court
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  Speaker 2: in our New Jersey case has granted a temporary restraining
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  Speaker 2: order preventing the state and the school district in question
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  Speaker 2: to preventing them from continuing on with these policies, depending
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  Speaker 2: a hearing on the merits, which will be held on
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  Speaker 2: September third in the Moonmouth County Courthouse.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, this is along the same lines as we've
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  Speaker 1: heard of school districts around the country who take a
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  Speaker 1: child who wants to have an abortion across state lines.
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  Speaker 1: And this is this is an absolute violation of parental
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  Speaker 1: school trust. You pay school taxes, You put your child
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  Speaker 1: on a school bus, and you assume that the child
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  Speaker 1: will be protected through the day and come back the
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  Speaker 1: child that you left at the school bus in the morning,
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  Speaker 1: and that isn't the case.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very difficult to deal with this for these parents.
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  Speaker 2: I have three of these cases right now, and I
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  Speaker 2: know of others that are percolating. The parents are really
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  Speaker 2: they don't they can't believe that this is happening to
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  Speaker 2: their child typically and that they've been not been able
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  Speaker 2: to get help. I have another case where a parent
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  Speaker 2: was helping the child, you know, and I had no
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  Speaker 2: problem with the child deciding to transition once she was
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  Speaker 2: eighteen years old, But while the child was eighteen years
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  Speaker 2: under eighteen and under his roof, he wanted to be
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  Speaker 2: able to work through things with the child. Because truth
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  Speaker 2: is brains aren't fully reformed until the mid twenties, and
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  Speaker 2: children need their parents guidance. Fit parents, that is, you know,
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  Speaker 2: we're not talking about abusive parents. We're talking fit parents.
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  Speaker 1: Right, And that's one of the arguments I guess that
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  Speaker 1: the districts were making was that, you know, in these cases,
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  Speaker 1: these kids could be subjected to abuse at home if
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  Speaker 1: the parents knew that this was happening at school. But
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  Speaker 1: if that were the case, there are other laws that
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  Speaker 1: are being violated if the parents are being abusive, right,
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  Speaker 1: And that's a separate and above and beyond this.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, And no parents should be abusive, and no
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  Speaker 2: parental abuse should be tolerated, and it's not by law.
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  Speaker 2: But we're talking fit parents. And look, the story I
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  Speaker 2: hear from parents who have gone through this is not
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  Speaker 2: that they're angry at their child. It's that they are
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  Speaker 2: so sorrowful that they were not able to talk to
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  Speaker 2: their child and speak to the child and try to
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  Speaker 2: work through with their child and try to understand what
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  Speaker 2: was going on with the child. It's a loss of family.
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  Speaker 2: It's a complete really, it's a destruction of the family.
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  Speaker 2: It's not a matter of being angry with the child.
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  Speaker 2: The children have all sorts of issues, and parents are
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  Speaker 2: supposed to play the primary role in raising children, be
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  Speaker 2: it for educational or for medical issues.
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  Speaker 1: But again, the idea that the parent sort of has
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  Speaker 1: a feeling of having one pulled over on them, that
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  Speaker 1: the only one who the secret is kept from is
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  Speaker 1: the parent, and yet the parent is the one forced
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  Speaker 1: to pay the school taxes, the parent is the one
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  Speaker 1: forced to care for the child, and yet the parent
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  Speaker 1: is the one that the secret is kept from, is
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  Speaker 1: just infuriating.
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  Speaker 2: Well, that's actually an interesting point because one of the
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  Speaker 2: issues is, look, these school administrators, none of whom is
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  Speaker 2: none of these people are educated in any kind of
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  Speaker 2: psychotherapy or anything like that. There's school administrators, people with
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  Speaker 2: teaching degrees, iministrative degrees. They're not professionals, and they're doing
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  Speaker 2: this transitioning and at some point the child leaves the
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  Speaker 2: school and those people are out of their lives. The parents, though,
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  Speaker 2: are still going to be responsible for paying for all
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  Speaker 2: the psychiatric treatments, the medical treatments, anything that comes up.
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  Speaker 2: The parents are forever going to be on the hook
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  Speaker 2: for these things. And there are plenty cases where where
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  Speaker 2: there are children who have transitioned and as adults, they
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  Speaker 2: want to they wish they hadn't done that, They wish
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  Speaker 2: they could transition back that because they made a decision
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  Speaker 2: too early in their lives. There are many people who
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  Speaker 2: transitioned and they're happy, and God bless them. To me,
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  Speaker 2: that's not something that I'm against. If they're emotionally able
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  Speaker 2: to do that and want to do that, that's their business.
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  Speaker 2: But for a child, the child is the business of
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  Speaker 2: the parent, and the parents have absolute constitutional rights, and
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  Speaker 2: it's the parent ultimately who has to bear the burden
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  Speaker 2: of how the child turns out in terms of happiness
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  Speaker 2: and psychological impact and frankly physical impact as well.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're talking with attorney Ron Burruti, who is in
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  Speaker 1: the middle of several lawsuits. Actually, one we're talking about
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  Speaker 1: right now is involving a New Jersey school district where
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  Speaker 1: children are allowed to be in the school district transitioning
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  Speaker 1: socially and the parents are not told of this. So
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  Speaker 1: this is what the lawsuit is about. You have two
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  Speaker 1: other lawsuits. Talk about the federal lawsuits if you can. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: So I.
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  Speaker 2: Have one case that was pending for a few years now,
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  Speaker 2: which is a similar tale of a daughter of a father,
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  Speaker 2: a single father whose wife had died when the child
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  Speaker 2: was four years old, and as she had suffered obviously
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  Speaker 2: through with lots of trauma. Also, you know, someone on
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  Speaker 2: the spectrum for autism, which is the school district's really
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  Speaker 2: really go after those kids because a lot of them
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  Speaker 2: feel out of place already because of their autism. But
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  Speaker 2: this girl was actually had spoken to her father about this,
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  Speaker 2: and she was undergoing various therapy and you know, nothing
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  Speaker 2: to try to dissuade her, but to try to help her,
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  Speaker 2: to make sure that she was, you know, feeling the
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  Speaker 2: right way and that she was not just being impulsive.
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  Speaker 2: And that was the situation again where the father was said,
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  Speaker 2: at eighteen, if you want to do this on your own,
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  Speaker 2: that's your business, but you're under my roof right now
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  Speaker 2: and I want to help you. But still she told
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  Speaker 2: the school she joined the club and told the school
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  Speaker 2: that she'd like to be called by a boy's name.
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  Speaker 2: And it was months after the fact that the father
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  Speaker 2: learned and he was just really taken aback this was
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  Speaker 2: happening behind his back, that school officials would call him
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  Speaker 2: use his daughter's name as a female, but at all
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  Speaker 2: other times would refer to the daughter as by a
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  Speaker 2: boy's name, and the child was leading a double life
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  Speaker 2: and was really struggling psychologist, psychologically because of it, and
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  Speaker 2: we sued for him on grounds of parental rights, alleging
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  Speaker 2: that this was unconstitutional.
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  Speaker 1: Ron, do you see this going to the Supreme Court?
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  Speaker 2: Well, the interesting part is that the United States Supreme
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  Speaker 2: Court has already ruled on this issue, at least temporarily
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  Speaker 2: in California that had the same types of policies. Supreme
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  Speaker 2: Court recently ruled that there's a likelihood of success on
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  Speaker 2: the merits that California an injunction would be issued against
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  Speaker 2: California from engaging in these practices. But New Jersey, among
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  Speaker 2: other states, still does this and still has these policies.
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  Speaker 2: And we're now relying on upon that case in the
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  Speaker 2: Supreme Court that came out of California in support of
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  Speaker 2: our case here, and with that ruling, we feel that
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  Speaker 2: we have a tremendous chance of success on any and
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  Speaker 2: all of these cases that we're taking with regard to parents' rights.
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  Speaker 1: All right, Ron Baruti, attorney, please keep us abreast of things,
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  Speaker 1: let us know what happens with these cases. And thanks
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  Speaker 1: for being on the mark. Simone Show. Thanks so much
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  Speaker 1: for having me catrozettowin from Mark on your Friday. When
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  Speaker 1: we come back, we'll take more of your calls and numbers.
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  Speaker 1: Eight hundred three two one zero seven ten. Eight hundred
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  Speaker 1: three two one zero seven ten calling now for WR