The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division launched a compliance review on Monday targeting four California public school districts over their instruction and policies surrounding sexual orientation and gender ideology (SOGI).
Federal investigators are looking into the Graves Elementary School District, San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), Santa Rita Union School District, and Soledad Unified School District. The review spans grades pre-K through 12 and focuses on how these districts handle parental rights, single-sex spaces, and athletic teams.
A primary focus of the investigation is whether the districts are properly notifying parents of their right to opt their children out of SOGI-related instruction. Under current California law, sex education must include these topics, and parents hold the right to opt their children out of all or part of that curriculum.
However, federal officials noted that SFUSD has previously instructed teachers that parental permission and notification are not required to teach or discuss SOGI concepts. The DOJ is also examining how these topics are embedded into mandatory social studies and history classes.
Beyond classroom curriculum, the compliance review is evaluating district policies that allow access to locker rooms, bathrooms, and girls’ sports teams based on gender identity rather than biological sex. Investigators are checking if these taxpayer-funded districts are adhering to Title IX, the federal law banning sex-based discrimination in education.
The DOJ is specifically measuring the districts’ policies against two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Mirabelli v. Bonta and Mahmoud v. Taylor, both of which reinforced parental rights in education.
“This Department of Justice will not tolerate local school authorities trampling on the rights of parents concerning the education of their children,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division. “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.”
The Civil Rights Division stated that the launch of the compliance review does not mean they have reached any official conclusions or findings of wrongdoing against the school districts.
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