“Supreme Court precedent is clear: parents have the right to direct the religious upbringing of their children, which includes exempting them from ideological instruction which conflicts with their families’ sincerely held religious beliefs.”
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has opened investigations into three Michigan public school districts to determine whether they are teaching lessons that include sexual orientation and gender identity-related content, and, if so, whether parents were told they could opt their children out.
The districts under review are the Detroit Public Schools Community District, Godfrey-Lee Public Schools, and the Lansing School District, which the department collectively described as the “Michigan School Districts.” The inquiries will focus on instruction in grades pre-K through 12, according to the department’s announcement.
If investigators find the districts are providing what the department called “sexual orientation and gender ideology (SOGI) content” in classrooms, the probe will examine whether families were informed of their right to excuse students from that instruction. The investigations will also assess whether the districts restrict access to what the department described as “single-sex intimate spaces,” including bathrooms and locker rooms, “based on biological sex.”
“This Department of Justice is fiercely committed to ending the growing trend of local school authorities embedding sexuality and gender ideology in every aspect of public education,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, who leads the Civil Rights Division, said in a statement. Dhillon argued that legal protections for parents and students are at the center of the federal review. Citing the recent Supreme Court decision Mahmoud v. Taylor, Dhillon said, “Supreme Court precedent is clear: parents have the right to direct the religious upbringing of their children, which includes exempting them from ideological instruction which conflicts with their families’ sincerely held religious beliefs,” she said. Dhillon also pointed to federal sex-discrimination law in education, adding, “Title IX demands that we guard the safety, dignity, and innocence of our youngest citizens, our children, by ensuring that they have unfettered access to bathrooms and locker rooms of their biological sex.”
The department said the investigations will examine whether the districts are complying with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Title IX prohibits discrimination “on the basis of sex” in educational programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.
Federal officials noted that the districts are recipients of taxpayer funding, describing the amount as “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Civil Rights Division investigations are typically fact-finding processes that can include document requests, interviews, and policy reviews. Depending on what investigators determine, outcomes can range from a finding of no violation to negotiated compliance agreements to litigation, though the department emphasized that no determinations have been made.
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