California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta vowed Tuesday to defend state educators and their immigrant and LGBTQ+ students against Trump administration threats, saying California laws requiring inclusive school environments remain intact and that his office will go to bat for them.
“California’s schools are and will remain a welcoming, inclusive and safe place for all, regardless of your sexual orientation, gender identity or immigration status,” Bonta said. “The federal government does not dictate what we teach, and does not write our curricula. We do that here in California.”
Bonta’s reassurances echoed local school officials in recent weeks, and follow efforts by President Trump to bring educational policy across the country swiftly in line with his agenda, including through executive orders and other sharp shifts in federal policy.
Last month, the Trump administration rescinded a policy — in effect since 2011 — against federal immigration agencies making arrests in “sensitive locations” including churches, hospitals and schools.
The policy change immediately sparked fears among undocumented families, and anecdotal evidence in California, Bonta said, that some of those families were starting to pull their children out of school. California is home to nearly 11 million immigrants, he said.
Trump also last month issued multiple executive orders asserting that the U.S. government recognizes only two sexes that are “not changeable.” He also put strict limits on how educators may address gender nonconforming students or facilitate a child’s social transition to the gender aligned with their identity.
In one order titled, “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” Trump took specific aim at school policies aimed at supporting transgender, nonbinary and other gender nonconforming students — suggesting they run afoul of the Constitution.
The Jan. 29 order called on government agencies, including the Department of Education, to within 90 days deliver back to Trump a plan for “eliminating federal funding or support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”
The order also called for plans to bar federal funding from being used to “directly or indirectly support or subsidize the social transition of a minor student” or to conceal a student’s transition from their parents. Federal agencies were directed to draft plans to begin working with local prosecutors to “file appropriate actions” against teachers and other school officials who “violate the law” by “facilitating the social transition of a minor student.”
The order won praise from activists in California and across the country who allege that social transitioning amounts to abuse, and who have lambasted California for passing into law a recent measure that forbids schools and teachers from informing the parents of gender nonconforming students about their social transitioning without their consent.
However, Trump’s effort to invalidate California’s law made many LGBTQ+ families fearful, as well as many teachers who suddenly wondered whether they could find themselves in legal trouble simply for supporting their LGBTQ+ students.
Bonta lashes out
Bonta said Trump’s efforts at intimidation — including in California, which has large immigrant and LGBTQ+ populations — were purposeful.
“The first 15 days of President Trump’s second term have left many feeling scared, anxious and uncertain about their rights and about their protections, understandably so,” Bonta said. “Sadly, I think that’s part of the president’s intent — overwhelming us with a barrage of damaging, chaotic, illegal executive orders that impede on the laws and values that make our country great.
“It’s the strategy: flood the zone, create confusion and chaos. Try to create shock and awe,” Bonta said.
But California, he said, is going to continue providing “facts” and “reason” in the face of Trump’s “scare tactics” and “divisive and dangerous rhetoric” — and “will not abandon our values” and “will not be deterred by the president’s threats.”
“The President continues to demonstrate a propensity to overreach his authority and violate the law — and I will not hesitate to take him to court if he does,” Bonta said. “We are aware of his threats to put conditions on federal education funding, and we are prepared.”
Bonta said the federal government “sets the floor of what education law requires,” and that “in this case that floor, unfortunately, is in the basement.” However, it is individual states that “set the ceiling, and can demand better, can provide for more,” he said. “In California, our ceiling is sky high, and it will stay that way.”
He said attorneys in his office are reviewing Trump’s actions and standing ready to support students, including the members of his office’s Civil Rights Enforcement Section.
How California protects LGBTQ+ and immigrant students
Bonta said transgender and gender nonconforming students are a protected class, including in California’s constitution, and they “cannot be discriminated against” — including by “forced outing policies” that target such students, violate their right to privacy and increase risk of harm for some of them.
He noted the state has challenged such policies in local California school systems in the past, and passed a law making it clear that such policies are illegal in the state.
Bonta also reiterated a slate of guidance for school leaders who may be faced with federal immigration enforcement actions at their schools, including that they should immediately notify high-level administrators in their districts and inform enforcement officers present that they are doing so.
The guidance tells school officials to make copies or notes of the immigration officers’ credentials, and any documentation they can provide as to their authorization for accessing a school. It says school officials “should not consent to access by an immigration enforcement officer unless he/she declares exigent circumstances or has a federal judicial warrant.” They also should “not attempt to physically impede an officer, even if he/she appears to lack authorization to enter.”
It calls on school officials to notify parents as soon as possible of any such enforcement on their school campus, and to also inform Bonta’s office.
Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho said Tuesday that L.A. school officials are also seeing a lot of fear and concern, which is understandable.
He said LAUSD would “stand by our values” that schools are and should be “safe places.” The district, he said, is collaborating with Bonta’s office, with city and county entities and with community based organizations to ensure schools remain safe.
“Our staffs have been trained. Parents have been empowered with information specific to the rights they possess. We will not waver from our commitment of protection to our students and our workforce,” he said.
Carvalho noted that attendance was noticeably down on Monday — amid the rising fears and “day without immigrants” protests over Trump’s policies that included remaining home from work, school and other activities. Carvalho said he supported students’ right to protest, although he would prefer they remain on campus.
He also urged apprehensive families to continue sending children to school, saying that “depriving children of their education by keeping them home away from school does not help anyone.” Parents who are scared to approach schools for fear of immigration arrests should “empower someone else in your family or a neighbor” to help get their children to school.
David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Assn., said at a Tuesday press briefing that teacher unions plan “to fight for public education and our students” as Trump talks of diminishing the Department of Education and allowing for immigration raids at schools. Goldberg said union action has never been more vital.
In a separate interview, Goldberg said that there have been “huge attacks” from the Trump administration around “teaching of history, a real, true history of this country and our state,” including LGBTQ+ history.
Limiting such teaching excludes and marginalizes students, he said.
“It’s something that we need to continue in California,” he said, “to redouble our efforts to make sure that our schools are welcoming places for all of our students.”
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