The Brief

The billboards popped up in January, looming above busy intersections near the city limits of Beverly Hills, where such advertising is banned.

“Los Angeles should be SAFE for abortion seekers,” declared the signs, which depicted a group of four young women of color staring defiantly at passersby. “Fight back against attempts to shut down DuPont Clinic.”

Weeks later, at a forum ahead of Beverly Hills’ March city council election, moderator Andrea Grossman pressed the crowded table of candidates about their position on abortion rights.

“Are you pro-choice, and what is your view about abortion clinics in Beverly Hills?” she asked. “Would you take steps to keep out abortion clinics in the city if there were likely to be disruptive protests?”

Nearly a year after DuPont Clinic — a Washington, D.C., provider that performs abortions into the third trimester and sought to open a clinic in one of California’s wealthiest and most famous communities — lost its lease at a medical center on Wilshire Boulevard, Grossman and a small band of local activists are still laboring to draw a spotlight and stoke a sense of outrage that matches their own.

Despite the sympathetic politics of Beverly Hills, which lit its city hall pink to protest the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision that overturned a constitutional right to abortion, it has been a struggle. While more than two-thirds of local voters joined Californians statewide that November to enshrine “reproductive freedom” in California’s constitution, few of them now seem to be paying attention to what Grossman calls a “hideous” situation that undermines that very protection.

On a recent afternoon, Grossman sat in her living room with other members of a group they founded last fall to demand attention and accountability for DuPont Clinic — furious that Beverly Hills had failed to stand up to anti-abortion protestors and defend a provider offering a procedure not commonly available elsewhere, and frustrated that liberals remain oblivious to the threats to abortion access in their own backyard.

“In 2023, to have to start Beverly Hills for Choice,” she said, “how crazy is that?”

‘Feeling the backlash’ to abortion rights

Reproductive rights have dominated the political landscape across the country since the end of Roe v. Wade and California is no exception. In the wake of the ruling, Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democratic state leaders vowed to turn California into a “haven” for abortion rights, placing the constitutional amendment, known as Proposition 1, on the ballot and passing dozens of other new laws to protect doctors, expand the number of providers and fund travel for patients.

Just last week, Newsom and the Legislative Women’s Caucus introduced a bill that would allow Arizona abortion providers to temporarily treat their patients in California after a strict abortion ban takes effect in Arizona in June.

But with the heightened focus on accommodating the expected influx of patients from conservative states that banned or restricted abortion, California has largely overlooked the limitations on access in its own borders.

Many counties have no abortion clinics at all. Because the procedure is prohibited once a fetus can live outside the womb (around 24 weeks of pregnancy) except when the life or health of the mother is threatened, most providers will not treat women who need abortions late in their pregnancy, forcing them to leave California for care. There are no gestational limits in nine states and Washington, D.C. — where DuPont Clinic performs abortions up to 32 weeks.

At least two other proposed California abortion clinics have also been blocked from opening in the past two years because of local opposition in more conservative areas: Visalia, one of the largest cities in the Central Valley, and Fontana, the second-most populous city in San Bernardino County.

“We are feeling the backlash of the state taking a very strong stand in support of very strong access,” said state Sen. Toni Atkins, a San Diego Democrat who ushered Proposition 1 onto the ballot. “The more rights people seem to gain, the more those who are directly opposed become more vocal.”

Abortion rights protesters confront an anti-abortion demonstrator at a rally in Los Angeles on May 14, 2022.

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Jon Dunn, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties, said the organized resistance is more intense than he’s ever seen in his 30-year career. Aggressive demonstrations now require full-time security staff at every clinic, he said, while local officials who might have once backed down under threat of a lawsuit are standing firm.

“It ramped up after (Donald) Trump and then it ramped up again after the Dobbs decision,” Dunn said. “The folks on the extreme of the issue are more extreme and more willing to dig in.”

The Planned Parenthood affiliate has been trying to open a new clinic in Fontana since 2022. The permit process was first delayed for months by what Dunn said were “absurd corrections” from city officials to their building plan, such as demanding sconces for decorative lighting. Shortly after the permits were finally approved last summer, the city council passed an emergency moratorium on development in the section of Fontana where the proposed clinic was located.

Now the Planned Parenthood affiliate is suing Fontana, alleging that it violated residents’ right to access reproductive services as established by Proposition 1 — a broad legal argument that Dunn hopes could prevent another city from doing the same thing in the future.

“We saw this pattern developing of municipalities using their power to prevent reproductive health centers from opening,” Dunn said. “We felt it was time to draw a line in the sand.”

The city of Fontana has denied that it targeted Planned Parenthood, calling the emergency moratorium “a strategic and necessary measure in the planning process as Fontana progresses with the highly anticipated redevelopment of the important downtown and commercial corridor.”

State leaders have been slow to get involved in these local battles.

The office of Attorney General Rob Bonta is reportedly investigating the Beverly Hills case, but a spokesperson declined to confirm the investigation or discuss their strategy for protecting abortion access in California.

At a press conference about the bill for Arizona abortion providers, Newsom refused to answer a question from CalMatters about whether his administration is doing anything to address the barriers preventing clinics from opening in California.

Another measure currently moving through the Legislature could help: Assembly Bill 2085 by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, an Orinda Democrat, would create a streamlined approval process for reproductive health clinics that meet certain development criteria.

“Just listening to the amount of work that our abortion providers are putting in to get the permits, it’s shocking to me,” Bauer-Kahan said. “There’s always a new front that people who want to deny access to health care will find and we need to show them that California will continue to be vigilant.”

‘The gap between values and action’

Activists have been particularly struck by the conflict in Beverly Hills because the community is a Democratic stronghold in a blue state — demonstrating what they regard as a lack of courage by politicians to prioritize abortion rights in a polarized society.

Bonyen Lee-Gilmore, vice president of communications for the National Institute for Reproductive Health, an abortion access advocacy organization that paid for the billboards about DuPont Clinic, said its campaign was a warning that “this can happen anywhere” if people are complacent about reproductive rights and a call to demand accountability for elected officials who did not step up to defend the clinic’s right to open.

“We have had a long-running problem with standing in the gap between values and action,” Lee-Gilmore said.

DuPont Clinic never opened in Beverly Hills and never served a single patient there. The matter is now headed to court after DuPont last year separately sued Beverly Hills and Douglas Emmett, Inc., the landlord that rescinded its lease, alleging they “colluded and conspired with the protestors to try to drive DuPont out of the City.” The case against the city, which has sought a dismissal on free speech grounds, is set for a hearing today about discovery.

A spokesperson for Beverly Hills did not respond to a detailed list of questions about how it handled the controversy over DuPont Clinic, citing the lawsuit.

“The City is already home to medical offices that offer reproductive health services and has been very clear on its position of strongly supporting a person’s right to choose,” spokesperson Lauren Santillana said in an emailed statement. “The decision to rescind DuPont Clinic’s lease was not made by the City of Beverly Hills.”

According to its lawsuits, DuPont chose Beverly Hills as the site for its second clinic in part because it believed the city would support it. After the company announced its plans in late 2022, anti-abortion protestors began showing up outside the building where DuPont had leased an office, but renovations and permit applications with the city continued.

The medical building where the DuPont clinic was planned in Beverly Hills, on April 16, 2024. Photo by Jules Hotz for CalMatters

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The situation escalated in April 2023. First, on April 10, the group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust projected the words “MURDER MILL” onto the side of the building during one of its protests and DuPont contacted the local police department about security concerns. A week later, three opponents spoke during a city council meeting, with one suggesting that Beverly Hills would develop a “reputation of condoning murder” if it allowed the clinic to open.

“DuPont Clinic has chosen Beverly Hills to host a massacre,” Tasha Barker, a Sacramento paralegal leading a group called Stop DuPont Clinic, said by phone at the meeting. “I am asking you to consider how extreme this clinic is, pause the approval of their building permits and place this issue on the agenda for the next city council meeting.”

During the meeting, Beverly Hills City Manager Nancy Hunt-Coffey emailed members of the council with more information about DuPont Clinic, according to documents obtained by Beverly Hills for Choice through a public records request. It included a warning: “Late-term abortion clinics can be the focus of protests, rallies and unfortunately other more violent actions on occasion.”

“How did this get through?” Councilmember Sharona Nazarian responded.

“Well, it’s a private business renting space in a private building,” Hunt-Coffey replied. “We don’t have anything in our code that prevents it…”

Barker followed up by email with several council members the next day, arguing that it was “quite offensive to the community of Beverly Hills” that DuPont had chosen the city and requesting a meeting to “explain some of the practical, unemotional reasons” why the clinic should not be allowed.

Nazarian replied that she was open to learning more. Over the next few weeks, emails show city employees planning with the city attorney and local law enforcement for a meeting with Barker, which was scheduled for May 19. It’s unclear what was ultimately discussed.

The entrance to the Beverly Hills City Council chamber and the exterior of Beverly Hills City Hall, on April 16, 2024.

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Barker would only speak with CalMatters if a reporter signed a contract agreeing to conditions that included allowing her to “review and make edits” to this story prior to publication. CalMatters refused because that would violate our editorial policies.

In the Beverly Hills council chambers earlier this month, Nazarian declined to answer questions, before Deputy City Manager Keith Sterling stepped in front of a CalMatters reporter to end the conversation.

“As someone who has always supported a person’s right to choose, I am proud that our City already provides high quality reproductive services,” Nazarian wrote in an email. “As an elected official committed to transparency and accessibility, I make it a point to meet with any group or individual, when requested.”

‘A political basis’ or safety concerns?

Meanwhile, the week after the city council meeting where opponents raised objections to DuPont Clinic, the abortion provider learned that Beverly Hills had placed a hold on its project while City Attorney Laurence Wiener reviewed whether it was an allowed use for the building, according to emails and DuPont’s lawsuit.

Following a phone conversation with Wiener, a lawyer for DuPont agreed to provide a letter confirming that the clinic would not violate California law with any services it provided. A few days later — after DuPont’s chief medical officer, Dr. Jennefer Russo, emailed the city council to complain about the permit delays — the hold was lifted.

Jessica Corpuz, an attorney representing DuPont Clinic, told CalMatters the abortion provider was “always, always going to operate within California law,” which only allows abortions after fetal viability when the life or health of the mother is threatened. She said Beverly Hills officials appeared to take some of the complaints of “anti-abortion extremists” to heart and “interject themselves in the process” in a way that they would not have for other medical practices.

“It was clear from the beginning that it was a political basis,” Corpuz said.

The DuPont lawsuit alleges that around the same time, the city met with representatives from landlord Douglas Emmett and directly asked if there was any way to “simply prevent DuPont from opening its clinic.”

Emails show that in the weeks that followed, city officials, including from the police department, continued to meet with Douglas Emmett representatives about safety concerns and drafted a letter for distribution to other tenants of the building. It warned that they could face violence, vandalism, harassment and intimidation because an unnamed “new reproductive health care provider” was opening.

“I thought he was going to suggest a locking door for the garage, security to get in the elevators, security offers with/without guns, bomb sniffing dogs etc.” then-Mayor Julian Gold, who did not respond to interview requests, wrote in an email after reviewing a draft. “I don’t mind turning up the heat a little.”

Though the letter was never sent, it was cited by Douglas Emmett on June 12, 2023, when the landlord canceled DuPont’s lease. The notice, emailed to DuPont with six Beverly Hills officials copied, accused DuPont of withholding information during lease negotiations about its services and the severity of protests that it would face, which DuPont denies. A spokesperson for Douglas Emmett said the company does not comment on matters in litigation.

DuPont, in its lawsuit, said this joint email was clearly intended by Douglas Emmett “to notify the City that it had done what the City instructed it to do.” Beverly Hills treated the clinic as the problem, said Corpuz, the DuPont attorney, instead of focusing on how to keep everyone safe.

“The implication is that there is really scary things that are going to happen as a result of DuPont Clinic moving into this building,” she said. “It’s really sad, really scary, to see that all it takes is a couple of anti-abortion protesters going to a city council meeting.”

‘They betrayed the voters of California’

Despite the controversy, many Beverly Hills residents were entirely unaware of DuPont Clinic and the protests against it. Grossman and her fellow activists learned about the situation from news coverage of the lawsuits last summer. Infuriated, they formed Beverly Hills for Choice to push back, though by then, it was unclear that it would make a difference.

In addition to its records request, Beverly Hills for Choice collected signatures for an online petition asking the city for an independent investigation, a swift resolution to the lawsuit and an ordinance prohibiting cooperation with out-of-state entities looking into abortions performed in California. Those demands have so far been ignored.

Members also unsuccessfully sought help from Democratic politicians representing the area, whom they hoped might intervene and push for another solution, including U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu, state Sen. Ben Allen and Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur. Lieu and Chavez Zbur declined to comment for this story; Allen said in a statement he is “hopeful that the provider and the City can work together to ensure that area patients can get the access they need.”

Andrea Grossman, left, and Gay Abrams, two members of Beverly Hills for Choice, on April 16, 2024.

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Gay Abrams, a member of Beverly Hills for Choice, said she found the city’s handling of the situation hypocritical, given its public stance in support of reproductive freedom, and she worried that it would empower abortion opponents to use the same strategy elsewhere. Though she understood the heightened sensitivities around a clinic that performs abortions into the third trimester, she said it should not have mattered because of the protections guaranteed by Proposition 1.

“They kowtowed to a group of anti-abortion extremists,” Abrams said. “They betrayed the residents and they betrayed the voters of California. And I think they betrayed people and women all over the country who are in need of safe reproductive health care.”

The Beverly Hills for Choice activists argue that, in the emails they obtained, city officials never consider whether they have an obligation to protect DuPont Clinic’s right to operate. The activists believe the city was primarily concerned with appeasing protestors to avoid the “messiness” that would follow if the clinic opened.

In another series of exchanges, from July 2023, city officials including then-Mayor Gold communicated and set up meetings with Tim Clement, outreach director for Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, about further protests his group had planned outside the medical center where DuPont was no longer opening. After Clement wrote in an email that “we would be willing to turn our campaign in another direction out of Beverly Hills” if the city would provide a written statement that “DuPont is definitely NOT moving into Beverly Hills City limits,” Deputy City Manager Sterling confirmed that “the lease has been rescinded.”

Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust touts that it shut down DuPont Clinic in Beverly Hills, including with signs at its booth last week at the California March for Life rally at the state Capitol.

“Activism works. It’s meant to cause concern about how this is going to affect your neighborhood,” Clement said in an interview. “But mainly what activism does is make people aware. It exposes what’s in the dark.”

With significant funds sunk into the office renovation, attorney Corpuz said DuPont Clinic still hopes to open in Beverly Hills, but she acknowledged that may never happen.

The Beverly Hills for Choice activists also have their doubts. They wonder whether there will be any accountability for how DuPont was treated.

“I’m looking for people to own up to it,” Grossman said. “I do want more than a slap on the wrist. I don’t know what that looks like.”

More than 29,000 people sleep outside in L.A^., according to official estimates — a nearly 8% increase over last year.

Two candidates for mayor are promising to change that, but they have different ideas about how.

Incumbent Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman appeared separately at homelessness forums hosted this week by Hope The Mission, a large homeless shelter operator.

The events were held amid a national spotlight on L.A.’s homelessness crisis.

This week, a congressional subcommittee held a hearing on allegations of fraud and mismanagement of homelessness funds — a hearing in which Bass declined to appear. The next day, federal authorities announced charges against three employees at L.A. homelessness nonprofits in a widening federal investigation of homeless services fraud.

Bass cited L.A.’s homelessness crisis as the reason she sought the city’s top job in 2022.

“I ran because I am always compelled to go toward a crisis,” she said Thursday.

She has made clearing homeless encampments and moving people indoors a top priority as mayor, but fell far short of her pledge to end street homelessness by 2026.

Raman has said founding a local homelessness nonprofit inspired her 2020 L.A. City Council run. For years, Raman was chair of the council committee focused on city homelessness policy.

Both candidates have played major roles in shaping L.A.’s homelessness response in recent years, and they told forum moderators this week that the city’s approach has been dysfunctional.

L.A.’s next mayor will face a barrage of challenges related to homelessness.

Here’s how the candidates said they would handle some of the big ones:

How will they deal with the Trump administration?

The Trump administration has been cracking down on the L.A. region’s administration of homeless services to root out potential financial mismanagement, but also to challenge the local policy approach to homelessness and impose policies it prefers.

Federal officials argue that approaches known as “housing first” and “harm reduction” are failing. They favor treatment and enforcement instead.

Bass, a Democrat, skipped a House subcommittee hearing on federal homelessness spending Tuesday, dismissing it as politically motivated.

“ I'm the mayor of the second-largest city in the country, and I don't have time for foolishness,” Bass said Thursday. “And remember, I know these people. It's a dog and pony show to see who's gonna get on Fox that night. I was not going to subject myself to that, and I was not going to subject our city to that.”

Bass said her office is cooperating fully by supplying thousands of pages of documents.

Raman said L.A. should be using the courts much more aggressively to challenge federal overreach and protect funding.

“ We've done that less than I would've liked here in Los Angeles, but other cities have done that and actually kept their federal dollars in place despite the best efforts of the Trump administration.”

She said the city also has to make sure that funding is spent effectively, arguing L.A. currently has no single person tracking every dollar coming in from the federal government, state government and other sources.

“That is wrong,” Raman said at a forum on Wednesday. “If I am mayor — when I am mayor — I will ensure that every single dollar that is being given to us is being used to get as many people indoors into safety and to keep them there as effectively as possible.”

What to do about LAHSA?

Both candidates have said they support the city eventually breaking away from LAHSA, the joint city-county homelessness authority.

"The county filed for divorce. Now we file, too," Bass said on Thursday.

Last year, L.A. County officials voted to remove more than $300 million in annual homelessness funding from LAHSA’s control and to manage those funds itself with a new county department. Bass is now proposing the city create its own, independent “continuum of care,” a process she said could take “a couple of years.”

Bass, who appointed herself to serve on LAHSA’s governing board before stepping down this month, said she’s learned in recent years “how profoundly dysfunctional” the regional homeless services system is.

She argued that because L.A. represents 40% of the county's population and is the epicenter of the crisis, the city must have more control over the system.

“You might remember that expression I started with: locked arms,” Bass said. “And we locked arms as long as we could.”

Raman, in her mayoral platform, also called for the city to prepare to move hundreds of millions of dollars in homelessness contracts away from LAHSA, which she described as "plagued with scandal." But she said the city has to build the capacity to take on the job first.

At Thursday's forum, Raman didn't mention LAHSA by name, instead describing coordination failures between agencies — citing permanent supportive housing units that sat empty for more than a year because departments weren't talking to each other.

As chair of the council's Homelessness Committee, Raman said she created the city's Bureau of Homelessness Oversight to track spending and outcomes, but accused Bass of failing to staff it promptly.

“The mayor did not hire people to staff up that oversight body quickly enough,” Raman said.

LAHSA has served as the lead agency managing homelessness services for the region since 1993, including conducting a yearly homeless count, preparing regional applications for federal funds and managing key databases.

This week, the agency announced it would soon forfeit those roles and allow other agencies or organizations to apply for them instead — including other county or city of L.A. agencies.

What about encampments?

The candidates are also somewhat split on their approach to homelessness encampments. Bass has criticized Raman for voting several times since 2022 against expanding the city’s anti-camping ordinance, which restricts camping in certain public spaces including schools and day cares.

Raman has defended her votes. She argued the law, at best, “would have moved an encampment from one block to the next block.”

“To me, that is not good enough," Raman said. "My imagination for how we address homelessness in L.A. goes beyond just thinking about which block an encampment should be on. It is about how we actually get encampments indoors."

Asked about enforcement approaches, Bass pointed to physical barriers — like cement planters that replaced a major encampment on San Vicente Boulevard — as a more effective deterrent than ticketing or arrests.

“ So sometimes using physical barriers work, but what we have not done is just gone in and arrested homeless people,” Bass said. “That has never happened.”

The sharpest divide between the candidates centers on Bass’ signature program, Inside Safe, which moves people from encampments into motels and interim housing.

Raman said she agreed with the underlying concept — going out to encampments and offering shelter — but that the program is too costly and hasn't evolved since Bass launched it in 2022.

“Her program has not changed or learned or adapted from the lessons that they should have had in place, and to me, that is a major, major issue,” Raman said.

Raman put the cost at roughly $100,000 per person, per year — "not a fiscally sustainable approach to a crisis that is growing in our city," she said — and favors time-limited subsidies, short-term rental vouchers that cost a third as much.

Bass called that framing "fundamentally dishonest," arguing the county reimburses the city for some of the up-front cost.

Bass said she wants to bring costs down by building permanent structures on public land instead of renting motel rooms.

She said she favors moving groups of unhoused people together and bringing services to them, which she said is harder to do with the housing vouchers Raman wants to rely on.

"I would house 30 people at a time, not one by one,” Bass said. "I see it from a people's point of view. She sees it from a numbers point of view. Both are needed."

The general election is Nov. 3.

Just off the 405 freeway at the border of Costa Mesa and Santa Ana, a block down from IKEA and a couple of business parks over, you'll find Darkroom.

It's the kind of address where you'd expect to find a dentist's office or a logistics company — instead, it's home to some of the most inventive food in Orange County, and arguably beyond, anchored by a formidable wine program featuring small producers.

The location is a deliberate choice by Zach Scherer, Darkroom’s chef-owner, that has turned the restaurant into a growing word-of-mouth destination. For Scherer, hiding in plain sight was never a compromise. It was the plan.

Inside Darkroom

The interior of the restaurant is a completely different story. Its decor matches that of an angsty teenager who shops at Hot Topic, with an affinity for industrial and goth music, and a bit of new wave mixed in.

Darkroom's interior leans into its irreverent, gallery-meets-Hot Topic aesthetic.

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Your eyes might take a minute to adjust to the low light before a friendly server wearing a tattered band T-shirt greets you and escorts you to your table.

Scherer wears his nonconformist attitude with pride — and intention. "If you're a little too serious, Orange County won't love it," he said, and it shows: the room is built to feel like the opposite of a hushed tasting menu.

Chef Zach Scherer (right) and Drew Adams work the pass together — the same partnership they describe as "like a band."

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Scherer runs the kitchen with longtime partner Drew Adams — a lifelong Orange County resident — who also oversees the pastry program. The two think of Darkroom's identity "like a band," Scherer said: a shared core sound, no matter who's guesting on a given dish. (Their tasting-menu concept, Chrysalis, runs out of the same kitchen some nights — a five-course tasting menu happening in parallel.)

The menu

Start off with the Scotch olives, fried Castelvetrano olives with anchovy and lamb merguez, served over spiced sumac yogurt. Meanwhile, a couple of slices of their zucchini bread with koji butter, topped with silky jamón serrano, provide some comforting bites.

Grilled and marinated Jimmy Nardello peppers — a short-season ingredient the kitchen deliberately doesn't overwork.

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From there, seasonal produce takes center stage, with grilled, marinated Jimmy Nardello peppers served with fennel-pollen labneh and sprinkled with walnut dukkah, hitting equal notes of sweet, spicy, nutty, and fresh. Followed by honeynut squash from Weiser Farms — poached in a light broth known as nage, made with bits of country ham and horseradish, topped with rainbow chard, a dish that reads Southern-meets-European.

The Darkroom burger, cut in two — only 10 are made a night.

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Cap things off with The Darkroom burger, cut in half, made with dry-aged beef, molten Comté cheese, and gooey caramelized onions, served between soft, glossy brioche-style buns, swimming in a light au poivre bath. It's a dish that, like the others, exhibits strong technique but still wears its fun on its sleeve — all the makings of a truly memorable meal.

The philosophy

Scherer's goal is to make the Orange County food scene nationally competitive with San Francisco, New York, and Chicago — and the seasonal fluency on display that night, from summer's last Jimmy Nardellos to fall's first honeynut squash, is the technical proof behind that claim.

The fried Scotch olives — Castelvetranos stuffed with anchovy and lamb merguez, set over sumac yogurt.

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The menu's dynamic approach — its ability to oscillate between cuisines — reflects that same nonconformist identity, reinforcing the idea that the food doesn't take itself too seriously, just like the space around it.

Scherer's ambitions don't stop at Darkroom's walls; he's also developing Three Eyed Tiger, a cocktail-forward concept nearby.

"The food we're making now is the food that I'm the most proud of, because it really shows our identity," said Scherer.

A San Bernardino County Superior Court judge on Tuesday rejected Chino Valley Unified School District’s request to dissolve an injunction blocking its policy requiring employees to notify parents when students identify as transgender or use different names or pronouns at school.

Judge Michael Sachs upheld his 2024 injunction blocking Chino Valley Unified from enforcing a policy the school board adopted in 2023. The policy required district employees to notify parents within three days if their student asked to go by a name or pronoun different from official school records or join a sex-segregated program, such as athletics, that did not correspond to those records.

The school district had asked Sachs to overturn a permanent injunction after the U.S. Supreme Court issued an emergency docket ruling in a separate case, Mirabelli v. Bonta. The district argued that the ruling affirmed parents’ constitutional right to be informed about information critical to their children’s health and well-being.

Sachs rejected the request, saying his injunction does not conflict with the Supreme Court’s ruling. During Tuesday’s hearing, he distinguished between the two cases, saying the school policy at issue in the Mirabelli case required school employees to withhold information from parents when asked.

“The school’s policy essentially mandated that staff lie to the parent about their child, and the court did not accept that,” Sachs said of Mirabelli v. Bonta.

The Chino case involves a different question: whether school employees can be required to disclose a child’s gender identity to their parents.

“There is no mandatory duty for the school district to voluntarily release information about the student,” Sachs said in court.

Chino Valley Unified was disappointed by the ruling, said Emily Rae, the district’s attorney and president of the California Justice Center, a conservative legal nonprofit focused on protecting individual liberty.

“The main problem is that it puts the burden on parents to know whether they’re having a secret kept from them,” Rae said.

Rae said Sachs’ ruling misinterpreted the Mirabelli opinion, which she said made clear that schools should not withhold information from parents. She said it was too soon to say whether the district would appeal the ruling or make changes to any of its policies.

Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified school board and a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, also criticized the ruling. In an interview with EdSource, she called the proceedings a “kangaroo court” that has caused “so much confusion.”

Shaw said she planned to ask the superintendent whether the district could ask all parents to check a box: “Do you want secrets to be held from you?”

“They shouldn’t have to do that,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s insane we have to go through all these hoops to uphold a parent’s right to know.”

Christine Parker, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said the ruling was consistent with the Supreme Court’s order in Mirabelli v. Bonta and other applicable law.

“The court got it right: Blanket policies like Chino Valley USD’s, in which school employees must — in all circumstances — disclose a student’s gender identity to their parents, remain unlawful in California,” Parker said in a statement to EdSource.

Another pending case referenced in Tuesday’s proceedings was the City of Huntington Beach v. Newsom, which hinged on a dispute over AB 1955, known as the SAFETY Act. The law, signed by Newsom in 2024, bars school districts from requiring staff to disclose a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity to parents. It went into effect before the injunction in the Chino Valley Unified case.

In the wake of the Mirabelli v. Bonta case, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a preliminary injunction for parents in the City of Huntington Beach v. Newsom who sued to block enforcement of the SAFETY Act.

This story was originally published by EdSource. Sign up for their daily newsletter.