Judge Michael Scott pauses implementation and enforcement of portions of Jim Walsh’s Initiative 2081

A non­prof­it-led coali­tion scored a cru­cial ini­tial vic­to­ry today in its law­suit to pro­tect Wash­ing­to­ni­ans from the con­se­quences of a right wing ini­tia­tive enact­ed sev­er­al weeks ago by state law­mak­ers. King Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Judge Michael Scott grant­ed a par­tial pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion that bars the state from imple­ment­ing and enforc­ing some of the most prob­lem­at­ic pro­vi­sions of Ini­tia­tive 2081, a mea­sure spon­sored by State Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair Jim Walsh, which attacked the bal­ance between stu­dent pri­va­cy and parental rights in an effort to stoke the right wing’s cul­ture war agenda. 

I‑2081 is one of the six “Let’s Go Wash­ing­ton” mea­sures spon­sored by Walsh and fund­ed by mul­ti­mil­lion­aire Bri­an Hey­wood. It qual­i­fied as an ini­tia­tive to the 2024 Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture in Jan­u­ary after Hey­wood dumped mil­lions of dol­lars into a sig­na­ture dri­ve to pur­chase sig­na­tures for it and its five brethren. 

Assess­ing its pos­si­ble reper­cus­sions to be lim­it­ed, giv­en that it appeared to have been writ­ten prin­ci­pal­ly to be a cul­ture war mes­sag­ing vehi­cle, Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors decid­ed to take the mea­sure off the bal­lot by pass­ing it into law dur­ing the lat­ter days of the 2024 leg­isla­tive ses­sion in March. In doing so, they not only freed up bal­lot real estate that would have oth­er­wise pro­mot­ed one of Wal­sh’s mes­sages, they pre­served the Leg­is­la­ture’s abil­i­ty to amend I‑2081 in the 2025 leg­isla­tive ses­sion by major­i­ty vote. 

Osten­si­bly, I‑2081 pur­ports to be about parental noti­fi­ca­tion, but as men­tioned, it was writ­ten to be a mes­sag­ing vehi­cle for the right wing’s ongo­ing cul­ture war cam­paign. The Office of the Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion informed law­mak­ers that much of what was in I‑2081 was sim­ply restat­ing what was already in state law — mean­ing, the ini­tia­tive would­n’t give par­ents many rights or pow­ers they did­n’t already have. 

How­ev­er, the ACLU of Wash­ing­ton, Legal Voice, and QLaw Foun­da­tion con­clud­ed that some of the vague, poor­ly-word­ed pro­vi­sions in I‑2081 posed a threat to Wash­ing­ton youth. They filed a com­plaint last month on behalf of ten plain­tiffs (a mix­ture of non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions, a school dis­trict, and indi­vid­u­als) chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the measure.

After con­sid­er­ing their argu­ments and the state’s response, Judge Michael Scott con­clud­ed that the plain­tiffs had con­vinc­ing­ly demon­strat­ed that I‑2081 was harm­ing them and that they had com­pelling argu­ments that the mea­sure was­n’t con­sti­tu­tion­al. In a rul­ing from the bench, he grant­ed their request to put parts of the mea­sure on ice. 

The ten plain­tiffs con­tend­ed in their com­plaint that 2081 “cre­ates ambi­gu­i­ty and risk —for stu­dents and edu­ca­tors alike — regard­ing what records and con­ver­sa­tions can be kept con­fi­den­tial. For the many young peo­ple who do not feel safe dis­clos­ing to their par­ents dif­fi­cult chal­lenges in their lives, they will suf­fer harm because school will no longer be a place where they can seek con­fi­den­tial coun­sel with a trust­ed adult.”

They also con­tend­ed that 2081 “will harm stu­dents and inter­fere with their right to a qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion, an inclu­sive cur­ricu­lum, and a non-dis­crim­i­na­to­ry learn­ing envi­ron­ment. Edu­ca­tors will face addi­tion­al bur­dens teach­ing inclu­sive cur­ricu­lum and anti-bul­ly­ing, anti harass­ment, and anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion lessons, as top­ics as broad as ‘morals’ and ‘beliefs’ require notice and opt-out. Notice and opt-out require­ments will bur­den staff time, inter­fere with teach­ers’ abil­i­ty to teach impor­tant top­ics, and cause dis­rup­tions as stu­dents who are opt­ed-out require supervision.” 

Judge Scott was recep­tive to their argu­ments, though in remarks pub­lished by The Wash­ing­ton State Stan­dard, he cau­tioned: “It’s not this court’s posi­tion to deter­mine whether that’s good pol­i­cy or not.” The Stan­dard­’s Lau­rel Demkovich and Grace Deng also report­ed that the judge “raised con­cerns over the sweep­ing lan­guage in the ini­tia­tive call­ing for schools to turn over all med­ical and men­tal health records and to do so with­in 10 days.” That’s a ref­er­ence to Sec­tion 1 (b)(i) of Ini­tia­tive 2081, which says that par­ents have the right to “inspect their child’s pub­lic school records in accor­dance with RCW 28A.605.030, and to receive a copy of their child’s records with­in 10 busi­ness days of sub­mit­ting a writ­ten request, either elec­tron­i­cal­ly or on paper.”

The judge’s rul­ing is expect­ed to safe­guard some of Wash­ing­ton’s most vul­ner­a­ble youth from hav­ing their med­ical records divulged with­out their consent. 

“We are pleased with this rul­ing as it will pre­vent parts of I‑2081 from caus­ing fur­ther harm while we seek a final deci­sion in this case — but this is not the end,” said Adrien Leav­itt, staff attor­ney for the ACLU of Wash­ing­ton, in a statement. 

“We will keep fight­ing this case in hopes of a final judg­ment that shows this harm­ful law vio­lates the State Con­sti­tu­tion and should not be imple­ment­ed or enforced.”

“This rul­ing is a relief for LGBTQ+ stu­dents who would oth­er­wise be tar­get­ed by this ini­tia­tive if it were imple­ment­ed,” said Denise Diskin, an attor­ney for QLaw Foun­da­tion. “I‑2081 is a dan­ger­ous law that will increase the num­ber of LGBTQ+ youth who are unhoused because their fam­i­lies reject them, and will have life-alter­ing out­comes for all youth. Our team is com­mit­ted to ensur­ing that Wash­ing­ton State con­tin­ues its long his­to­ry of pro­tect­ing, not hin­der­ing, youth privacy.”

“Today’s rul­ing helps pro­tect youth’s con­fi­den­tial access to impor­tant health care and sup­port,” said Julia Marks, liti­gia­tion attor­ney for Legal Voice.

“Sur­vivors of sex­u­al assault, LGBTQ+ youth, youth who need repro­duc­tive and sex­u­al health care, and oth­er vul­ner­a­ble stu­dents rely on trust­ed adults at school who can con­fi­den­tial­ly help them nav­i­gate chal­lenges. I‑2081 would jeop­ar­dize this con­fi­den­tial­i­ty, but the court rul­ing stops those sec­tions of the Ini­tia­tive from going into effect.”

For now, some of the most wor­ri­some parts of I‑2081 have been blocked. But, as Leav­itt said, the case will go on. A final ver­dict like­ly won’t be returned by the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court for anoth­er year or so at the ear­li­est. It is pos­si­ble, how­ev­er, that the 2025 Leg­is­la­ture and our next gov­er­nor could ren­der the legal chal­lenge moot by repeal­ing I‑2081 next win­ter. That would restore state law to what it was before the ini­tia­tive was enact­ed. Alter­na­tive­ly, the Leg­is­la­ture could replace I‑2081 with new leg­is­la­tion that affirms and pro­tects the bal­ance between parental rights and stu­dent privacy.