The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating how 43 school districts in three states teach about sexuality and gender identity and whether they give parents the opportunity to opt their children out of lessons that conflict with their religious beliefs.
The agency’s civil rights division said the compliance reviews are necessary to ensure recipients of federal funding aren’t violating civil rights laws. But the investigations are a sharp departure from the practices of past presidential administrations. Fulfilling the requests will require extensive time and resources from district leaders, who’ve been directed to produce reams of curricula, documents, text messages, and other materials, civil rights advocates said.
Most recently, the Justice Department’s civil rights division on June 8 announced investigations into San Francisco and three other California districts. The agency announced similar investigations into 36 Illinois districts in April and three Michigan districts, including Detroit, in February.
Notification letters the agency sent to targeted districts broadly cite the states’ sex education requirements, which include discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity. The letters don’t detail specific complaints about the districts or explain why they are targets when other districts in their states are not. In addition to classroom lessons, the investigations will also review whether schools allow transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity, the letters said.
“I am fine with the process and investigation as we have nothing to hide, but the [unclear] communication really put schools in a hard spot,” said PJ Caposey, superintendent of the 1,400-student Oregon, Ill., district, which is among those under investigation.
The letters and subsequent media coverage sparked immediate questions and concerns from parents and community members about why their district was a target. Caposey’s working theory is that all of the Illinois districts are recipients of the same school safety grant from the Justice Department, but the agency’s letters did not cite that grant, leading to speculation about whether the district had done something wrong. It was a “PR nightmare,” he said.
The Justice Department did not respond to questions from Education Week about the investigations.
“This Department of Justice is determined to put an end to local school authorities keeping parents in the dark about how sexuality and gender ideology are being pushed in classrooms,” said Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet K. Dhillon said in an April 30 announcement. “Supreme Court precedent leaves no doubt: parents have the fundamental right and primary authority to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children.”
The Trump administration also announced Tuesday that it would transfer the Education Department’s own office of civil rights to the Justice Department, which would assume oversight over civil rights enforcement in schools—leaving questions about how the agencies will handle such investigations in the future.
Trump administration targets transgender student policies
The investigations come as President Donald Trump’s administration continues to hammer “gender ideology” as a key political issue and policy priority. Trump signed an executive order the day of his second inauguration threatening to withhold federal funding from schools that let transgender girls participate in girls’ sports, claiming such policies violate Title IX.
The U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights has since launched dozens of investigations into school districts, athletic associations, and state education departments over such policies, and the federal government has sued California, Maine, and Minnesota over their state policies.
Conservative groups have praised those efforts, but civil rights advocates have called the focus a distraction from pressing concerns about sexual assault and harassment in schools, racial discrimination in school discipline, and schools’ obligations to students with disabilities.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., released a report April 28 that said the U.S. Department of Education’s OCR has reached “zero resolution agreements for students facing serious traumatic incidents including sexual harassment, sexual violence, seclusion, restraint, racial harassment and discriminatory school discipline” in 2025 after Trump took office.
OCR investigates laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, sex, and disability in schools that receive federal assistance. The Justice Department’s civil rights division may investigate schools and other public organizations under a broader array of laws, including those that prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion.
“This feels deeply harmful and deeply unserious,” Michael Pillera, the director of the Educational Opportunities Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said of the Justice Department investigations.
Federal investigators typically announce inquiries using neutral language and very specific details about what prompted their review, he said. The investigations into curricula are also notable because federal law prohibits the Education Department from controlling decisions about curricula, said Pillera, who worked for OCR under three presidents, including during Trump’s first term. Conservative lawmakers repeatedly stressed that states and districts, not the federal government, are responsible for selecting curricula during debates over the Common Core State Standards.
“This is just word salad,” Pillera said of the investigations. “It feels like they are just finding anything they can grab onto.”
Justice Department cites SCOTUS decisions on parents’ rights
Dhillon’s letters to the districts cite two U.S. Supreme Court actions: the 2025 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which held that schools must allow parents to opt their children out of curricula, including those with LGBTQ+ themes, that conflicts with their religious beliefs; and a March order in Mirabelli v. Bonta, which reinstated a lower court decision that held that parents have federal constitutional rights to be informed when their children socially transition or express gender nonconformity at school.
The agency has not issued detailed guidance to school districts on how those decisions apply to them. But former Attorney General Pam Bondi called on U.S. attorneys and civil rights investigators to be on the alert for potential violations of parents’ rights in a memo last September.
“Schools receiving public funds must ensure compliance with applicable federal protections, including mechanisms for parents to exempt their children from instruction that conflicts with the family’s sincerely held religious beliefs, such as content related to sexuality and gender ideology ... Any attempt to burden these rights will face scrutiny and action from the Department of Justice,” that memo said.
California, Illinois, and Michigan have state policies that require schools to allow families to opt their children out of sex education classes. But communications suggest the Justice Department is also concerned with lessons in other classes.
In communications shared by two districts that are under investigation, the agency instructed administrators to produce policies, handbooks, communications, curricula, homework assignments, quizzes, and handouts that refer or relate to 75 words and phrases, including “sex,” “masturbation,” “gender identity,” “gender support plan,” “puberty blockers,” “chest binder,” “vibrator,” “queer culture,” “family structure,” and “Stonewall Inn.”
The agency also directed the districts to document every display, sign, bulletin board, flag, visual aid, guest speaker, award, field trip, initiative, training, or student club related to those terms. Districts must also produce spreadsheets documenting when transgender students participated on single-sex teams, shared rooms with cisgender students on overnight field trips, and any district correspondence related to the Mahmoud and Mirabelli cases.
“We believe that questions regarding what may have prompted the review are most appropriately directed to federal investigators,” Soledad, Calif., Superintendent Randy Bangs wrote in a message to families last week after his district was notified of the investigation. “Our district is focused on responding to the DOJ’s requests in a complete, timely, and cooperative manner.”
Conservative lawmakers focus on “gender ideology” in schools
Education Week contacted a portion of the affected districts in each state, but most did not respond to questions about the investigations.
That includes the San Francisco district, where Superintendent Maria Su traveled to Washington June 10 to appear alongside superintendents from Chicago and Loudon County, Va., as witnesses in a contentious congressional committee hearing about parents’ rights in education.
Republican members of the House education committee repeatedly pressed Su about her district’s policies related to transgender students and teaching about LGBTQ+ history.
“At what age do you think students should be exposed to drag queen story hour?” Chairman Tim Walberg, R-Michigan, asked Su.
Su did not directly answer the question, but said parents can opt their children out of lessons they object to.
“San Francisco is proud of its history,” Su said in an opening statement. “The city is known as a pioneer in LGBTQ rights and we have a long tradition of embracing diversity and welcoming everyone, including those who feel marginalized or overlooked. As a school district, we were one of the first to recognize the importance of teaching about our diversity so that students can learn and grow together.”
