Chapter 1: What surprising discovery did Amber Levine make in her daughter's room?
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.
Chapter 2: How did the school social worker become involved in Amber's daughter's life?
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Chapter 3: What actions did Amber take after discovering the chest binder?
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Joining us now is Amber Levine and her attorney, Adam Shelton from the Shelton Goldwater Institute.
Chapter 4: What legal steps has Amber taken regarding her daughter's case?
Welcome to the show.
Thanks for having us.
Yes, thank you for having us.
So Amber, I wanted to start with, well, 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?
So she was 13 at the time. I didn't know much about breast binding at the time, but I knew it wasn't like a typical sports bra.
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Chapter 5: What were the responses from the school after Amber reached out?
I knew that it wasn't something I had purchased for my daughter. So I was very curious where it came from. And I knew it was going to take a conversation or two to kind of parcel out with my daughter where it came from. But I was confused and concerned for sure.
And 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 the 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.
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Chapter 6: What arguments did the courts present against Amber's claims?
She was a little embarrassed, a little taken aback that I had found this binder, and she was keeping it from me. And 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... kind of 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.
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Chapter 7: How might the Supreme Court's ruling impact parental rights?
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.
You know, 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. And so pretty quickly, they reacted. In hindsight, in the email, I mentioned a binder. And the principal called me on Saturday. 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
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Chapter 8: What advice does Amber have for other parents facing similar issues?
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.
And at that point, I had pulled my daughter from school. And now here we are.
So 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 kind of 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 a lawsuit in the federal district court for Maine. Unfortunately, both the district court in Maine and then the first district court of appeals in Boston ruled against the claims.
And what were the arguments from those courts, the district and appeals courts? Why did they rule against you? What was their claims?
So the Court of Appeals determined that there was an obvious alternative explanation for the school's conduct, and that was that there is a main law that allows a school counselor to establish a confidential relationship with a child.
So they said that the first circuit believed that that law protected this sort of conduct or protected the policy here, which is entirely besides the point because, as we all know, the U.S. Constitution trumps any state law.
Right. And on that point, you maintain that Amber's constitutional rights have been violated. Can you unpack that legal argument for us?
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