The Department of Justice has launched an investigation into four California public school districts for allegedly teaching students about sexual orientation and gender ideology under the guise of “LGBTQ history and social studies,” while failing to notify parents.
Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s civil rights division, sent a letter to the San Francisco Unified School District on Monday announcing a compliance review to determine whether SFUSD is violating Title IX by advising teachers that parental permission nor notification is required when discussing LGBTQ family and gender diversity to students.
The other school districts under investigation include Graves Elementary School District, Santa Rita Union School District, and Soledad Unified School District.
“Further, each of these school districts appear to have implemented policies that mean students may unknowingly share sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms with the opposite sex, and biological males are allowed to compete on girls’ sports teams,” Dhillon told The Post in a statement.
“Parents do not send their children to school to be indoctrinated, denied their personal privacy, or, in the case of girls, robbed of athletic opportunities.”
The letter states that teaching Queer and Trans Identity affirming lessons are mandated by SFUSD, and that the California Department of Education does not require parental permission or notification.
In the SFUSD LGBTQ Family + Gender Diversity Elementary Teaching Guide, “a discussion about gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning people does not constitute a discussion about human sexuality or family life education and does NOT require parent notification or permission according to the California Education Code.”
The guide goes on to say that parent notification is not required when teaching about LGBTQ family and gender diversity or speaking about LGBTQ persons in the curriculum outside of sexual health education.
Under California law, parental notice and opt-out provisions apply to “all or part of” sex education.
The DOJ said it has not reached any conclusion, but depending on the results of the investigations, school districts could be subject to losing federal funding.
“Under Title IX and the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent opinions in Mirabelli and Mahmoud, policies and practices like these are illegal, and this Justice Department is committed to stopping them,” Dhillon said.
