The Trump administration has opened an investigation into the sex discrimination policies of the Los Angeles public school district, scrutinizing a measure that gives schools discretion in deciding whether to disclose students’ gender identities to their parents.
The policy has been challenged by parents who sued the district, the second-largest in the country, saying the measure contributed to the isolation of their child, who later died by suicide. The Justice Department’s investigation was sparked by the lawsuit, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.
The 11-page policy at issue, which the Los Angeles Unified School District adopted in 2019, is meant to protect transgender students who may not have support for their gender identity at home. It includes guidance for teachers and faculty members to navigate matters of gender identity. The policy advises school officials to allow students to choose their pronouns and restrooms based on their gender identity, and to “take into consideration the safety, health and well-being of the student in deciding whether to disclose the student’s gender identity to parents.”
The Justice Department informed the district about the investigation in a letter on March 25. The investigation also includes a complaint from a female student that she was sexually assaulted after, she alleges, district officials ignored her warnings about the person accused of being the perpetrator.
A spokeswoman for the school district declined to comment. Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, who signed off on the investigation, said the Trump administration “will not tolerate policies that deny parents’ fundamental rights.”
“Parents have a fundamental right to the care, custody and control of their children, including the right to direct their children’s upbringing and education,” Ms Dhillon said in a statement.
The investigation is the latest move by the Trump administration to undo transgender protections that it says run afoul of the rights of parents to have full control and transparency over their children.
The growing parents’ rights movement grew out of the backlash to school shutdowns and other restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic, becoming a potent force in local elections.
President Trump latched on to the concerns of the movement during the 2024 campaign, when targets had expanded to include eliminating classes on critical race theory and library books that groups in the movement viewed as inappropriately explicit for children.
Since Mr. Trump’s victory, groups involved in the parents’ rights movement have helped shape the administration’s priorities, including the executive branch’s attempt to eliminate the Education Department and the removal of legal and institutional protections for transgender students.
The lawsuit mentioned in the letter is a complaint from Kathleen Mulligan and Andrew Parke, who say their only child, Dylan, died on March 1, 2024, two years after graduating from Palisades Charter High School. According to the complaint, Dylan’s death can be traced back to the 2019-2020 school year, when Dylan was a sophomore and told school staff about plans to come out as transgender and be known as Aria.
The complaint states that the school did not contact Dylan’s parents and instead pursued a plan for gender-affirming care that included allowing Dylan to use preferred pronouns and connecting Dylan with a therapist. According to the complaint, the school “actively took steps to facilitate the separation of Dylan from his family.”
“The secrecy policy isolated Dylan rather than helping him,” according to the complaint. “It did not expand educational access or reduce stigma; instead, it cut him off from those best equipped to address his distress and mental health risks, depriving him of the stability parental involvement provides.”
Lawyers for Ms. Mulligan and Mr. Parke did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
The parents are alleging that the school’s actions violated their 14th Amendment rights, which courts have generally held include the rights of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children.
The Supreme Court last month sided with a group of religious parents when it temporarily blocked California policies that bar teachers from disclosing transgender students’ gender identity to their parents without the students’ consent. The justices have separately been considering for weeks at a series of private conferences whether to review similar claims from parents in a case from Massachusetts.
Several advocacy and policy groups supporting the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case have also been at the center of the parents’ rights movement, including Advancing American Freedom, which was founded by former Vice President Mike Pence to promote school choice and parental rights as core conservative principles.
In the lawsuit against the Los Angeles school district, the parents are represented by Advocates for Faith & Freedom, a California law firm. The firm has played a significant role in the parents’ rights movement by legally challenging school policies involving gender identity and curriculum.
The Education Department on Monday took the extraordinary step of terminating multiple civil rights agreements with schools that previous administrations had found violated transgender students’ rights to equal opportunity to an education.
Policies regarding transgender students in California and Maine have been the subject of Education Department investigations during the past year. The Trump administration has also opened investigations into transgender policies for the Maine Education Department and the Washington State school superintendent’s office.
Nationwide, 3.3 percent of children aged 13 to 17 identify as transgender, according to the Williams Institute, a research center on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Michael C. Bender is a Times correspondent in Washington.
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