The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a compliance review into the San Francisco Unified School District and three other California school districts, examining whether their policies on gender identity and sexuality education comply with federal civil rights laws.
The review, announced Monday, comes just ahead of SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su’s scheduled testimony before Congress in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division will investigate whether the districts are adhering to Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs, and whether they are properly informing parents of their right to opt their children out of lessons covering sexual orientation and gender identity. The review will also look at district policies regarding transgender students’ access to bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams, as well as how the districts have responded to recent court rulings on parental rights.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon stated, “This Department of Justice will not tolerate local school authorities trampling on the rights of parents concerning the education of their children.” She added that recent Supreme Court decisions in Mahmoud and Mirabelli have put all school districts on notice that policies keeping parents uninformed about sexuality and gender ideology in the classroom must end.
According to a letter from Rep. Tim Walberg, chair of the committee that will hear Su’s testimony, lawmakers are reviewing SFUSD’s compliance with civil rights and student privacy laws and considering whether additional federal legislation is needed.
Walberg noted that the committee has recently proposed bills that would restrict instruction related to gender identity and require parental consent before schools change a student’s pronouns.
The DOJ emphasized that the compliance review is ongoing and that no findings have been made yet. The three other districts involved were not named in the announcement, but the review is part of a broader federal effort to ensure that California public schools respect parental rights and comply with Title IX.