Federal Investigation Launched After Allegations of Title IX and FERPA Violations
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) have launched investigations into four Kansas school districts: Topeka, Shawnee, Olathe, and Kansas City, Kansas.
The probe follows a complaint filed by the Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI), which alleges that the districts’ policies on gender identity violate federal law.
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The complaint focuses on two main issues:
Sports and Facilities: The districts’ policies allegedly allow students to participate in sports and use intimate facilities, such as bathrooms and locker rooms, based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex. This practice, according to the complaint, potentially violates Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in education.
Parental Notification: The policies also reportedly prevent school staff from disclosing a student’s “transgender status” to their parents without the student’s consent. This is a potential violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which grants parents the right to access their children’s education records.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach has also expressed concern about the districts’ practices, stating that he’s grateful for a federal government that takes Title IX “seriously.”
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Education Secretary Linda McMahon echoed these sentiments, stating that “gender ideology” is an “affront…to the sound judgment we expect from our educational leaders.” She emphasized that her office would “vigorously investigate these matters” to ensure the practices are stopped.
The investigations are part of a broader push by the Trump Administration to restore Title IX to what it considers its original intent and to protect what it calls parental rights. The SPPO had previously sent a letter to state superintendents in March, designating the practice of hiding a child’s “gender identity” from parents as a “priority concern.”
Violating Title IX or FERPA can result in the termination of an educational institution’s federal funding.
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