Education Department Investigates Four Kansas School Districts for Secret ‘Gender Transitions’
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is investigating four Kansas school districts for permitting males into female’s private spaces and sports, and for hiding student’s sexual identity confusion from their parents.
The ED launched the investigation of Topeka Public Schools, Shawnee Public Schools, Olathe Public Schools, and Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools (the Districts) on Thursday, August 14, after receiving a complaint from the Defense of Freedom Institute on June 24.
According to the complaint, the Districts authorize their employees “to conceal information from parents … regarding requests by their minor children to alter the names and pronouns used by staff to refer to them throughout the school day to align with their ‘gender identity’ rather than their biological sex.”
Additionally, the school districts allow students to participate in sports and access locker rooms based on their “gender identity,” meaning males can enter female-only spaces and participate in girls sports.
According to the Department of Education, such policies potentially violate Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) and the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
On the same day that the Defense of Freedom Institute filed its complaint, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach sent a letter urging the ED to review the schools’ policies which “actively undermine parental right and contravene federal law.”
He wrote,
The attorney general explained that in December 2023, he sent letters to six Kansas school districts confronting them over policies requiring or allowing school staff to hide information about student’s “social transitioning” from their parents.
“Social transitioning” includes calling individuals by their “preferred name” and “preferred pronouns” rather than by their biologically correct name and pronouns.
“Four of the school districts … refused to change their policies. These four districts continue to either permit or require hiding information concerning the ‘social transitioning’ of children from their parents,” Kobach wrote.
Thankfully, the ED has quickly acted upon Defense of Freedom Institute’s complaint and Attorney General Kobach’s letter and is now investigating the school districts for their policies.
In a statement after the ED launched its investigation, Attorney General Kobach said,
If the ED determines that Kansas violated Title IX and/or FERPA, it can demand the districts revise their policies to align them with federal law. Should the districts refuse, they risk losing federal funding.
“The Kansas districts’ alleged behavior of allowing gender ideology to run amok in their schools is an affront not only to the law, but to the sound judgment we expect from our educational leaders,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement announcing the investigation.
“School personnel should not confuse and unsettle young girls by forcing them to share sex-separated sports and intimate facilities with boys, nor should school personnel abuse their position of authority by hiding sensitive information pertaining to a child’s health and wellbeing from that child’s parents,” she added.
Secretary McMahon concluded,
Parents have both the moral and legal right to direct the care, upbringing and education of their children. The Daily Citizen is grateful for the Department of Education’s vigilant and prompt action in protecting students and parental rights.
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Equipping Parents for Back-to-School
‘Equipping Parents For Back-To-School’ – Updated Resource Empowers Parents
Sexualizing Schoolchildren: Classroom and Library Books
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