The Justice Department sued Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools on Tuesday, accusing the district of facilitating the “secret transition” of students’ gender without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, marked the first time the federal government had sued a public school district over gender identity and laws that ensure parents have access to their children’s records.
“The department will not tolerate school districts playing fast and loose with federal law in the service of radical gender ideology,” Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, said in a statement.
The school district, a mostly Hispanic and Black district that ranks the fifth largest in Kansas with about 20,000 students, maintained that it was in full compliance with federal law.
District officials said in a news release that they were “disappointed” by the government’s decision to sue and declined further comment.
The administration’s lawsuit comes nearly six months after a Supreme Court ruling in March that temporarily suspended policies in California that let public-school teachers avoid outing transgender students to their parents.
The California suit was filed by a group of Christian teachers and parents who contend that the policy requires schools to hide students’ transgender status and to facilitate their social transition, even over their parents’ objections.
That case remains pending, but the court’s conservative majority halted the policy in the meantime, saying the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their legal challenge.
Roz Keith, the mother of a transgender son and the founder of Stand With Trans, an advocacy group for transgender youth and their families, said in some instances students may fear abuse or being kicked out of their home if they come out to their parents.
“It is really important for students to have someone they can trust in these situations, and if they haven’t come out to their parents, there is usually a very good reason for that,” Ms. Keith said.
Dr. Genny Beemyn, the director of the Stonewall Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who researches trans youth, said the lawsuit was part of a “concerted campaign” by the Trump administration “to marginalize, deny rights and really deny the existence of trans and nonbinary people.”
“This essentially punishes them if they are at all visible and ask their school for support or protections just to be known as themselves and how they see themselves,” Dr. Beemyn said.
In Kansas City, the district’s gender policy requires educators to immediately tell the school principal if a student comes out as transgender. Principals then must discuss the situation “with the student or the student’s parent or legal guardian.”
Requests from a student to not notify their parents “will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis” by a team of district officials who oversee student and family support services.
According to the lawsuit, the federal government says those meetings are “inherently coercive” if a parent is not involved.
The suit said Kansas City schools violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act by not requiring educators to obtain parental consent before discussing gender identity with students. The district also violated the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment by not obtaining consent from students’ parents before changing the students’ pronouns or names, according to the lawsuit.
Those laws also include exemptions, including in instances when there is a significant threat to the health or safety of a student, according to Public Interest Privacy Center.
The Trump administration has been battling with four Kansas school districts since last summer, when the Education Department opened investigations into school districts in Kansas City, Olathe, Shawnee and Topeka over policies supporting transgender students.
Those investigations stemmed from complaints filed by the Defense of Freedom Institute, a Virginia-based nonprofit run by former officials from the first Trump administration. The second Trump administration has increasingly relied on allies to flag potential targets for civil rights investigations that align with the president’s cultural goals, such as dismantling protections for transgender men and women and eliminating diversity and equity programs.
“Government employees have no right to keep deeply personal information about children secret from their parents,” said Robert Eitel, who helped start the group after serving as senior counselor to the secretary of education in the first Trump administration.
In April, the Education Department found that all four districts were out of compliance with civil rights laws, saying the districts were concealing information from parents about whether students had asked to use different pronouns or names. The department also said that the districts were allowing students to use restrooms and locker rooms based on gender identity, instead of biological sex, which is the Trump administration’s interpretation of federal law.
The districts continued to refuse to comply with the administration’s findings, and the Education Department warned the schools they were at risk of losing their federal funding. On June 30, the Education Department referred the cases to the Justice Department.
The Topeka district settled with the Education Department last month and Trump administration officials said they had been engaged in significant discussions with officials from the Olathe and Shawnee districts.
Kiersten Pels, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said the Education and Justice Departments were continuing to work on additional investigations focused on parents’ rights and gender issues.
“This lawsuit should not come as a surprise,” Ryan A. Kriegshauser, the U.S. attorney for the District of Kansas, said in a news release. “Public education functions effectively only when schools and parents engage in a genuine partnership.”
Mitch Smith contributed reporting.
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