Court Blocks Texas Parental Rights Law on LGBTQ, DEI Issues Amid Activist Lawsuit
During the State of the Union address, President Donald Trump declared, “We ended DEI in America.” That fight, it would seem, is far from concluded.
Since retaking the White House last January, President Trump has signed a series of executive actions targeting federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and gender-identity politics in K-12 education. Among them are orders terminating DEI programs, defining sex strictly as biological male or female, and prohibiting gender-ideology instruction in public school classrooms. With no federal statute yet banning these practices outright, states have taken the battle to their own turf.
On Feb. 20, a federal judge temporarily blocked parts of Texas’s Senate Bill 12, a parental rights law aimed at banning DEI programs and LGBT content from Texas Pre-K through 12 schools.
U.S. District Judge Charles R. Eskridge III, a 2019 Trump appointee, granted a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of portions of SB 12 in three independent school districts: Houston, Katy, and Plano. The judge removed Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath from the case, ruling he does not directly enforce the law. As a result, the ruling in GSA Network v. Morath applies only to those independent school districts while litigation continues, and SB 12 remains in effect across the rest of Texas.
In the court’s ruling, Judge Eskridge invoked the “party presentation” principle because the districts declined to defend the law in court. He noted that “Our adversarial system of justice relies on party presentation … [Litigants] must assert their rights in timely fashion, or else risk forfeiting them.” He further explained that the independent school districts “specifically decline to either defend or disclaim the constitutionality of their actions, while also failing to oppose the motion for preliminary injunction.” They now have 14 days to decide whether to defend the law themselves or seek assistance from the Texas attorney general.
The judge’s injunction temporarily blocks the enforcement of four key provisions within SB 12. Under the law, public schools are prohibited from authorizing student clubs based on sexual orientation or gender identity. It also bans DEI programs and training in schools, restricts school employees from assisting students with “social transition,” and bars instruction or curriculum related to sexual orientation or gender identity for students from Pre-K through 12th grade.
The ACLU of Texas filed a lawsuit in June 2025 to challenge what it claimed were “unconstitutional aspects” of SB 12. At the time, it called Senate Bill 12 “one of the most extreme education bans in the country.” ACLU of Texas’s senior staff attorney, Brian Klosterboer, alleged, “S.B. 12 aims to punish kids for being who they are and ban teachers from supporting them. It sends the false message that Black, Brown, LGBTQIA+, and other students don’t belong in the classroom or in our state.”
After the injunction was announced, LGBTQ Nation was quick to report this as “a win for LGBTQ+ Texans,” despite the limited scope of the measure. Adrian Moore, one student at Katy Independent School District and a plaintiff in the case, reportedly said, “It’s a win for all trans students, and students from all backgrounds in my district. Schools should be places where all students feel safe and supported.”
Rep. Jeff Leach (R) supports the bill, and he said, “We’re not going to allow gay clubs, and we’re not going to allow straight clubs.” An advocate of protecting children from sexualization, he added, “We shouldn’t be sexualizing our kids in public schools, period, and we shouldn’t have clubs based on sex.”
Texas is not the first state to take on liberal ideology in education. Florida led the way in 2022 with the passage of the Parental Rights in Education Act, which bans instruction on sexual orientation and gender ideology from kindergarten through third grade. Dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by critics, the law survived legal challenges and remains in effect. In 2023, Florida signed another bill into law, Senate Bill 266, which prohibits public colleges and universities from spending state funds on DEI programs.
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