New Mexico Social Worker Refuses to Lie to Parents About Their Own Kids

Jeanette Martinez has spent more than a decade helping kids navigate some of the toughest challenges they’ll ever face. She’s a licensed clinical social worker at Atrisco Heritage Academy High School in Albuquerque, supporting special education students through academic struggles, behavioral issues, and the everyday chaos that comes with being a teenager. Her job requires constant communication with parents because, well, that’s what good social workers do. They build bridges between schools and families. They bring people together.

Now her employer wants her to become an accomplice in deception.

The Center for American Liberty filed a federal lawsuit on Martinez’s behalf against Albuquerque Public Schools over a policy that’s as brazen as it is troubling. The district’s Procedural Directive PJ30 creates a two-tier system of truth. Staff must use a student’s preferred name and pronouns in all internal records and school interactions. But when talking to parents? Unless the student or parent specifically says otherwise, employees are instructed to use the child’s legal name and birth pronouns. It’s institutionalized dishonesty dressed up as student protection.

Martinez describes an incident that captures the absurdity perfectly. A male student verbally decided he wanted to be female. Within two hours, a school team had chosen a new name for him, planned how to introduce this change to his first-grade classmates, and even discussed training those six-year-olds on how to interact with their newly transitioning peer. Two hours. That’s less time than it takes most of us to pick out a new couch, and these educators were making decisions that would fundamentally alter how this child presents to the world.

Here’s what gets lost in all the rhetoric about inclusion and affirmation. Martinez isn’t some culture warrior looking for a fight. She’s a Christian woman whose faith teaches her that lying is wrong. Period. Her religious convictions don’t allow her to participate in deception, and frankly, her professional training shouldn’t either. Social workers are supposed to strengthen families, not drive wedges between parents and children. Sitting in a parent-teacher conference while actively concealing critical information about a child’s mental and emotional state isn’t therapy. It’s betrayal.

The lawsuit alleges the policy forces school employees into what it accurately calls a “conspiracy to lie” whenever parents ask direct questions about their own children. Think about that for a second. A mother or father shows up to discuss their kid’s education, behavior, or special needs, and the professionals in the room are required by policy to hide information that any reasonable parent would consider vital. This isn’t about privacy. It’s about control.

Martinez requested a religious accommodation in April. She asked for permission to communicate truthfully with parents, to do her job with integrity intact. The district denied her request. Now she faces investigation, potential discipline, or termination if she refuses to comply. So much for tolerance and understanding.

The broader question here isn’t really about Martinez or even Albuquerque Public Schools. It’s about who gets to decide what’s best for children. Increasingly, we’re seeing school districts position themselves as the ultimate authority on kids’ wellbeing, treating parents like threats rather than partners. This paternalistic attitude assumes that educators know better than mothers and fathers, that bureaucrats in administration buildings have more invested in a child’s future than the people who brought that child into the world.

You know what’s fascinating? These same institutions will bend over backward to involve parents in fundraisers, volunteer opportunities, and sports booster clubs. But when it comes to fundamental questions about a child’s identity and mental health, suddenly parents are considered too dangerous to trust with the truth. The hypocrisy is almost impressive.

Martinez’s case matters because it exposes the collision between institutional ideology and individual conscience. Schools can’t function when they demand employees violate their deeply held beliefs as a condition of employment. Religious freedom isn’t some outdated concept we trot out only when it’s convenient. It’s a constitutional right that protects people from being forced to choose between their livelihood and their faith.

The First Amendment doesn’t evaporate at the schoolhouse door, and it certainly doesn’t disappear when progressive policies collide with traditional values. Martinez has every right to work in public education without being compelled to lie. Parents have every right to know what’s happening with their children. And kids deserve adults in their lives who are committed to their actual wellbeing, not just affirming every fleeting impulse that crosses their adolescent minds.

This lawsuit will test whether our institutions still recognize limits on their power. Can a school district force employees to deceive parents? Can bureaucratic directives override constitutional protections? Can the state insert itself between parents and children under the guise of protecting student autonomy? These aren’t abstract legal questions. They’re fundamental issues about authority, truth, and who ultimately has responsibility for raising the next generation.

Martinez isn’t asking for anything radical. She just wants to tell the truth.