Jennifer and Shane DeGross are licensed foster parents who cared for four children in Washington between 2013 and 2022. When they sought to renew their license in 2022, they learned that Washington Administrative Code § 110-148-1520(9) now required foster parents to support a child's sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression — known as SOGIE — by using preferred pronouns and chosen names. The DeGrosses, who believe a person's biological sex is an immutable characteristic given by God, told their licensing agency, Olive Crest, that they would love and support any child placed with them but would not use preferred pronouns or affirm gender transition. Olive Crest told them they were ineligible to renew.
After the DeGrosses filed suit on March 22, 2024, the parties agreed in August 2024 to a stay so the Department of Children, Youth, and Families could consider a new application. On January 23, 2025, Olive Crest submitted the application with a waiver request for § 1520(9). The Department approved the waiver on August 7, 2025, and issued a license on September 19, 2025 — but with restrictions: the DeGrosses may provide respite care for children ages 2 to 18 and foster care only for children ages 2 to 5; a child placement agency must conduct a review of a child's case plan before placement; emergency placements are prohibited; adoption recommendations are deferred until a child is identified; a caseworker must be notified of the waiver to verify that there are no known gender-diverse identity considerations; and the DeGrosses must complete LGBTQIA+ Basics for Supporting Youth training within their first license year.
Judge David G. Estudillo held that the DeGrosses plausibly alleged Policy § 1520 engages in viewpoint discrimination — restricting speech that diverges from the state's perspective on SOGIE while compelling speech that aligns with it — and that the as-applied claim survives because the Department effectively forced the DeGrosses to choose between forfeiting their speech rights to obtain an unrestricted license or keeping their beliefs and accepting a more limited one. Relying heavily on the Ninth Circuit's recent decision in Bates v. Pakseresht, 146 F.4th 772 (9th Cir. 2025), which addressed a materially similar Oregon foster-care certification rule, the court held that once viewpoint discrimination is plausibly shown, strict scrutiny applies and the government must demonstrate a compelling interest and narrow tailoring — an argument the defendants did not make in their motion to dismiss.
On the free-exercise claim, the court held that § 1520 is plausibly neither neutral nor generally applicable, either of which independently triggers strict scrutiny under Kennedy v. Bremerton School District and Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. The court cited the Eastern District of Washington's decision in Blais v. Hunter for the proposition that facially neutral foster-care SOGIE policies can in practice burden potential caregivers with sincere religious beliefs yet almost no others. The court also applied Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, holding that conditioning an unrestricted license on the DeGrosses' willingness to disavow their religious beliefs imposes a penalty on free exercise that triggers the most exacting scrutiny. Because the record at the pleading stage does not permit the court to determine whether the state can satisfy strict scrutiny, the free-exercise claim proceeds.
Two claims were dismissed with leave to amend. The equal protection claim failed because the DeGrosses did not allege facts showing discriminatory intent, and their freedom-of-association claim was dismissed because they did not identify what associational right they were asserting. The personal-capacity claims against former Department Secretary Ross Hunter were also dismissed: Hunter left his position on January 15, 2025, and the alleged constitutional violations — the restricted license issued after the waiver process — occurred after his departure, so he could not be held personally liable. The court granted leave to amend all dismissed claims by May 13, 2026.