A mother is suing Portland Public Schools and two school officials, saying she was banned from her children’s elementary school after criticizing its display of an “Intersex-Inclusive” pride flag and alleged gender identity lessons.
The Liberty Justice center filed the federal lawsuit Thursday on behalf of Allison Roberts, the mother of two Meriwether Lewis Elementary students.
The lawsuit alleges that the dispute between Roberts and the district began during the 2025-26 school year over benches at Lewis Elementary. Roberts claims that the benches, which were originally painted with the traditional rainbow pride flag, had been repainted to add stripes from the “Intersex-Inclusive Progress” variant of the pride flag.
According to the suit, Roberts took issue with the new benches as she considered the flag to be “an overtly political symbol that promotes values contradictory to her Christian faith.”
During the same school year, Roberts also objected to a classroom assignment given to her 11-year-old child that she said asked students to identify and discuss their gender identity, the lawsuit states.
The assignment, titled “identity flower,” asked students to fill out petals on a flower with answers to their identity, including their neighborhood, race/culture, family, spirituality, school, ability and gender, a photo from the lawsuit shows.
Roberts said that she received no prior notice so that she could opt her student out of the assignment, so she arranged a meeting with school officials to discuss her concerns.
The lawsuit alleges that during the meeting Roberts learned about other lessons at the school involving gender identity and expression. The lessons, the lawsuit alleges, amounted to “the introduction of ‘trans’ ideology.”
Roberts began distributing letters about the gender identity lessons from a sidewalk outside the school campus in January.
“Why is a hotly contested subject being presented as instructional?” the letter asked.
While handing out the letters, Roberts got into a heated exchange with another parent at the school. The next day, police served Roberts with a one-year trespass order barring her from Lewis Elementary School. The order said she was “threatening and intimidating members of the school community, and had engaged in ‘harmful, unlawful and/or disruptive behavior,’” according to the lawsuit.
The suit states Roberts was unable to attend one of her children’s elementary school graduation ceremonies as a result of the trespass order.
The lawsuit alleges that the school district violated Roberts’ constitutional rights by retaliating against her for speaking out against the school. She is seeking attorney’s fees and a removal of the district’s trespass order.
Portland Public Schools’ Transgender, Nonbinary and Gender Expansive Policy states that the district seeks to provide a “safe and welcoming environment for all students and staff, free of transphobia and homophobia.”
The policy states that the district’s push to improve inclusion “requires an unwavering commitment to a systematic shift in paradigms to increase the understanding of sexual and gender diversity.”
Portland Public Schools did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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