Portland mother Allison Roberts filed a federal lawsuit against Portland Public Schools after being barred from her child’s graduation over her protests of gender-identity curriculum.
Roberts, a Christian mother of children at Meriwether Lewis Elementary School, retained the Liberty Justice Center to sue the district and the school on Wednesday. The legal group alleges officials retaliated against her protected speech and violated her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
The dispute began during the 2025-26 school year when Roberts learned the school had repainted its traditional rainbow pride flag into an “Intersex-Inclusive Progress” variant. Though Roberts supported what she described as being immersed in Portland’s gay community, she viewed the new flag as “an overtly political symbol that promotes values contradictory to her Christian faith,” specifically its promotion of transgenderism, according to the lawsuit.
Tensions escalated when Roberts discovered an “identity flower” assignment given to her 11-year-old child. The worksheet asked students to identify and discuss their gender identity with classmates and teachers. Roberts alleged she received no prior notice of this assignment and requested a meeting with the school’s principal.
After receiving what she described as an unsatisfactory response, Roberts wrote an open letter to the community opposing the school’s policies. She distributed the letter on a public sidewalk outside school property.
“It has been heartening to see the outpouring of support from my local Portland community, and from parents and grandparents across the country,” Roberts said in an interview this week. “I never wanted things to get to this point.”
The lawsuit alleges that district officials later issued Roberts a one-year trespass order following a heated exchange with another parent. The order barred her from attending school events, including her child’s graduation ceremony. When Roberts reached out to the school for clarification, she was reportedly told the ban resulted from engaging in “harassment, intimidation, and threatening behavior” as part of a pattern of “animus and harassment targeting vulnerable members of [the] community.”
Timothy R. Snowball, senior counsel at Liberty Justice Center, said that the organization aims to secure broader protections through the litigation.
“Our next step in the case will be filing a motion for a preliminary injunction to put a stop to these unconstitutional policies while the case moves forward,” Snowball said. “This motion will help protect not only Allison’s rights, but all affected families in Portland.”
The Liberty Justice Center is asking a federal court to declare the school’s actions unconstitutional and issue an injunction against the policies targeting Roberts. The group also seeks an injunction against the school’s current harassment policy to prevent similar situations in the future.
In the viral moment that preceded the lawsuit, Roberts stood on a public sidewalk outside Meriwether Lewis Elementary distributing her open letter challenging what she viewed as the school’s imposition of gender ideology on young children. The confrontation with another parent during this protest led to the trespass order that ultimately excluded her from her child’s graduation ceremony.
“Knowing that I’m fighting this battle not just for my family, but for millions of American families, reassures me that bringing this suit is the right thing to do,” Roberts said.
Portland Public Schools declined to comment to Fox News Digital about the ongoing case.