by Debra Heine
The Department of Justice has filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools (KCKPS), alleging the district’s transgender and gender-nonconforming student guidelines violate federal law by facilitating “secret gender transitions” without parental consent.
The lawsuit follows a monthslong standoff and the Trump administration’s threat to withhold nearly $70 million in federal funding if the district failed to comply with parental rights laws.
“Parental rights are paramount in the operation of America’s public schools, and Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools does not know children better than their own parents,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Department will not tolerate school districts playing fast and loose with federal law in the service of radical gender ideology.”
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, joined by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas, claims the district’s “Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Students Internal Guidance Document” illegally directs staff to:
• Develop and implement “transitioning” plans based on a student’s gender identity.
• Withhold this information from parents as confidential.
• Allow students to request that their transgender or gender-nonconforming status be kept from parents, with such requests evaluated case-by-case.
The Justice Department said in a press release Tuesday that KCKPS’s guidelines violate two key laws designed to safeguard parental rights—the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which guarantees parents the right to inspect, review, and challenge their children’s education records, and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), which prohibits surveys, analyses, or evaluations of minors without written parental consent.
Parents have “the right to access and oversee information collected and maintained about their children in public schools,” the DOJ said.
“For decades, schools operated with little accountability as federal parental rights laws like FERPA and PPRA went unenforced, allowing some districts to cut parents out of deeply personal matters involving their own children,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “That era is over. The Trump Administration is enforcing these laws at an unprecedented scale and making clear that schools cannot hide sensitive information from parents and expect to operate with impunity. We are grateful to the Department of Justice for taking this next step and for its continued partnership with the Department of Education to enforce federal law and protect the fundamental rights of parents.”
KCKPS disputes the allegations, stating it is in full compliance with FERPA and PPRA. Superintendent Anna Stubblefield said the 2017 internal guidance document was not a formally adopted policy and that the district does not direct staff to withhold information parents are entitled to receive.
According to Attorney General Todd Blanche, KCKPS doesn’t consider changing a child’s name information parents are entitled to receive.
“Think about that!” Blanche told Fox News host Laura Ingraham, Wednesday night. “The most fundamental thing about an individual child is their name and you have the school district claiming that, oh, FERPA doesn’t cover that—that when Congress passed this law, they weren’t talking about something as fundamental as a child’s name!”
The lawsuit follows extensive efforts by the DOJ to secure KCKPS’s compliance with the parental rights laws.
Blanche said it was “incredible” and “shocking” that the DOJ was forced to sue the district to force it into compliance.
“We had to sue this district! It’s shocking,” Blanche exclaimed. “The fact that we’re talking about a school district keeping from parents something as fundamental as a child’s name and we had to sue the school district to get them to do the right thing is shocking.”
“We tried to work it out with them before we filed suit like we’re doing with many districts across the country and unfortunately, they refuse to comply with the law, which is why we brought this action, this week,” Blanche added.
“There’s not a parent in America, no matter where you live, that would want their school to change and call their child by a different name and not expect to be told about that,” he said.
The lawsuit comes amid a nationwide push by the DOJ to enforce parental rights in education, with over 40 school district investigations launched recently.
The case is currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas.
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Debra Heine reports for American Greatness.
