Department of Justice starts ‘gender ideology’ compliance review against local school districts.

The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division has initiated a complaint review of four school districts in California, including two in the Salinas Valley. 

Santa Rita Union and Soledad Unified school districts are under evaluation for “instruction on sexual orientation and gender ideology” in TK-12 education. 

SRUSD says in a statement that it is following the state’s standards and adds that it is in compliance with the law. “Our decisions are made in good faith, with transparency, and with the best interests of our students, their parents, and our community in mind. We will comply with the Department's requests for information,” the district’s statement reads. 

In a press release, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said, “This Department of Justice will not tolerate local school authorities trampling on the rights of parents concerning the education of their children. The Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Mahmoud and Mirabelli have put all school districts on notice: policies that keep parents in the dark about sexuality and gender ideology in the classroom must end now.”

Mirabelli v. Bonta and Mahmoud v. Taylor are landmark cases that increased parental rights and reached the Supreme Court. The cases challenged California’s policies of sealing students' gender transition and/or identity from parents without students' consent and allowed parents to pull their children out of LGBT instruction. 

The DOJ will review whether the school districts are adhering to Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded programs. It will scrutinize whether parents were notified, and to what extent that they can request to opt their children out of receiving LGBT-inclusive education, which includes sexual identity, sexual orientation and LGBT individuals’ contributions.

The DOJ would also assess bathrooms and locker room access policies and whether they are based on biological sex or gender identity.